The Royal Game of Ur

This game was played for centuries, I figured it would be fun to try to make a version of it in Pico-8. Thanks to the hard work of Professor Irving Finkel of the British Museum we have reconstructed the rules to this ancient classic game. I love this game not just because it was an exciting way to rekindle my love of programming but also because it's something that can be understood, played, and enjoyed now; millennia after it's creation. Reminding me that games, and the love of play, is so deeply interwoven into the fabric of being human. So thank you for letting me indulge in a little historical geekery as I work to keep this little bit of history still relevant. 

The Controls
This game can be played on this webpage, just click the play triangle, on your computer you controller using the arrow keys and use x and c for "x" and "o" respectively (joysticks/controllers are automatically detected if you so desire)

The game is also playable on mobile devices, in which case an overlay with the buttons will show up above the game. 

The Rules

The goal of the game is to get all your tokens from their starting point, across the board and safely back off the board. flip 4 coins to get a result between 0 and 4, and must move that number of tiles. No two tokens can occupy the same space, with the recent arrival knocking off the older occupant. There are 5 Rosettes, safe spaces, on the broad that when you land on them, you cannot be knocked off, also you get to move again after landing on it. It's a race to the finish line so roll the bones and get going!

The History

I could go on about the history of the game, the rediscover of it, and all that jazz, but let's be honest, there are better resources to learn about this then some rando with Pico 8, for example:

the British Museum posted a youtube video about the game with Tom Scott and Irving Finkel, which would be a good starting point for any internet rabbit-hole adventures. 

And here's another more recent video from Dr. Brad Hafford, and Milo Rossi