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DataScenes Mobile Apps - Aseb, the Royal Game of Ur
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The Royal Game of Ur, also known later on in Egypt as Aseb or Tau, is one of the oldest - if not the oldest -
board game we know of. The earliest boards found in the ruins of Ur (in modern southern Iraq, some 350 kilometers
south-east of Baghdad) are about 4,500 years old. This version is based on Egyptian versions about 1,000 years
more recent. In Egypt the game has been found on the back of Senet boards, suggesting that the same people
enjoyed both. To reflect that, the board design here, and the tokens used to generate moves, have been
deliberately copied from the Sabiya Senet game also available from Datascenes Development. Indeed, your adversary
is the same Sabiya as in that game. Versions of the game found further east use tokens more like modern dice.
Just as for Senet, we are not sure of the exact game rules, and several have been proposed over the years.
The two major areas of controversy are the sequence of places a player must follow, and whether the decorated
squares represent a bonus or a penalty. Here, the player can decide which of these options to pursue each game.
In all cases, the game objective is to get all the pieces out of the start area, around the course, and out
into the home area. Landing on an opponent's piece sends them back to the start.
Like Senet, the game is often considered an ancestor of modern backgammon. Unlike Senet, players can be moving in
opposite directions for part of the sequence of moves, which results in a very different feel to the game.
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