The Royal Game of Ur
The Royal Game of Ur is an ancient boardgame where two players compete to race to the finish while blocking each other and kicking your opponents stones off the board. This is a PC version of this ancient game.
The game has 3 AI difficulties. Kevin who is just learning the rules, Leonard who is practised but can be over zealous and Irving who is more tactical. He is named after Irvin Finkell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Finkel who discovered the rules to this milennia old game so we can play it today.
- RULES -
Both players roll 4 x 2 sided die (a tetrahedron but it's 1:2 chance to get a 1 or a 0. You move your stone to the value of the die. Landing on an opponents stone gets it kicked off the board. You cannot land on your own stone and you cannot land on an enemy stone that is on a rosette-square. There are several versions of the path on the board in this game you can select either the classical path or an alternate interpretation.
- ME -
I am hobbyist game developer and this project was inspired by https://www.youtube.com/c/quill18creates/ where he made a prototype of The Royal Game of Ur in a stream. Having been fascinated with this historical game for years I decided to make my own.
I might update this project at some time. But currently I consider this finished. Any feedback, comments suggestion and bug reports are greatly appreciated!
Download
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Development log
- WEB Build now available!Jul 21, 2023
Comments
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Very lovely and polished. Well done.
Thank you! I've been meaning to update this for the longest time but others projects / life / family have kept me busy :D
very nice, the match just took a while now I don't really want to play the other difficulties...
They don't have any mercy 😂. Leonard is a bit more aggressive so he is more prone to make unlucky moves 😃
This is possibly the best and most polished version of Ur on this site. The sounds and animation logic for hopping or sliding the pieces are a nice touch.
If you're interested in quality of life improvements, the camera switching sides between player turns is slightly distracting, especially when a zero is rolled. I know people often like to see a chessboard from their side, but I doubt a race game really needs it.
Rolling the dice with the spacebar would also be nice, since I'm playing on desktop.
Other than that, it controls very intuitively. I've played versions that required me to select the piece and then the location, as if this were backgammon. Your version makes much more sense, since the dice can't be split.
I have to ask, is the whistling in the background based on the song from the Bad Lip Reading video on The Emperor Strikes Back?
Thanks! 😂 No The background music is creative commons music.
Thanks for The feedback The camera has Been mentioned before and especially while playing PVE it is unnecessary to rotate The kamera.
I might update this at some point and I'll check these comments for feedback when the that time comes.
I'm glad you like it.
I like the camera switch. Thanks for making Kevin beatable - learned a brand new game just by jumping in!
That's wonderful! Thanks for playing.
Yeah, Kevin doesn't think ahead that much :D
I’m pleased to see someone recreating the game that I saw YouTube videos about. And the rules are all consistent as far as my 10th replay is aware.
This is based on the simplified rules by Irvin Finkel which he described. There are also more compilicated rules but perhaps needlessly complicated for a quick fun game :D
I can't open the game. I've tried re-installing and starting a few times but it only opens a window to a progress bar that never finishes. Is there anything I can do to fix this? This game looks rad.
There’s the HTML5 version of the game that you can play in the browser, right in the game’s main itch page.
Perhaps you have some settings wrong with you OpenGL in your browser?
This was a nice implementation of the game, I enjoyed playing a game against the first AI to test it out :)
I'm glad you liked it!
Could you make it less apparent that the game is rigged on Irvin's favor?
It really is not :D I promise you the dice rolls are completely randomized with 4x 4 sided die :D
Irvin always gets the rolls he needs?? And I always get 1.
Propably not ALWAYS as I am quite sure the code rolls 4 dice with a chance to land on 0 or 1 :D
Love this version of the classic game! Would love a little animation to represent rolling the dice before showing their results
I did consider adding like a physics based dice-system but I noticed personally that when playing alot you kinda want the diceroll to happen quickly so you can get to planning your move so I scrapped the idea.
Technically I could like animate the actual dice-stones to roll or bounce somehow if I do revisions at some point :D
Even if they just spun a little before displaying their outcome would help add to the feeling of a thing happening
Polish is 50% of a game after all, Right you are.
I agree! :)
Oh thanks again to whoever bought this free game :D I really appreciate your donations. They make me feel like a real game developer :D :D :D
good
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Really really neat execution!! ❤️
Thanks! I did spend alot of time on this. I'm thinking I might do some added features at sometime if I get the urge
I've been waiting for this ever since I saw the youtube vid. It's actually a lot of fun!
I've been playing alot with my girlfriend since I made this. I'd be fun to add like a mobile version and multiplayer if that's no too much at some point :D
So relaxing to play! I love the background music and sounds.
I can only take credit for the stone SFX everything else is Creative Commons but i did slide some rocks on a cuttingboard :D
That's real dedication to make a sound effect!
It all sounds and looks great- awesome game :D
got like 2 0s in a row and almost broke everything. Great game, 10/10
I can assure you the dice are purely random :D but they do function like the pyramid die so it doesn't give you a random number between 0-4 it gives you 4 x random between 0 and 1.
Which has the same effect as in real life that 2 is the most common number to get then 1 and 3 and at last 0 and 4
Really fun! And I bet that, historically, fights broke out over this game, likely leading to someone's demise. Because it really feels like Irvin is cheating sometimes.
As such, I would recommend a house rule: center star decay. Because that position is so absurdly critical, I'd wager that whoever takes it first and simply parks there seems like they're almost guaranteed a win. And if you roll 2 fours in a row, it feels like a slow death for the other player.
So, after a set number of turns of not moving a token from that center position, let's say four, the piece is destroyed and returned to the player.
This is a traditional game so definately there were local / houserules by which people played!
Wagers were probably also involved, as it happens; one of the historical sets found at Ur included a number of small clay balls that have been theorised to have been used like casino chips.
Irving FInkel, the man who decoded the rules of the game, also thinks it may have been used as a form of fortune-telling.
(I've not played the game as I have my own physical Ur set that I made, but it looks authentic. Might try it out later.)
So they won't be enslaving us yet. *piuh* what a relief!
At least for now... *wink wink*
¡Muy bueno! lo tengo impreso en 3D pero también es un placer jugarlo por aquí.
Gracias... I think :D
irvin let me win
I doubt it :D
I beat Irvin first try lmao take that nerd
😂😂😂
I absolutely adored this game!! It's not only very fun but also interesting to play an ancient board game and the implementation is just fantastic, 10/10!!
Thanks! I was really fascinated by this when ai first heard of it
Absolutely love it! Thanks for making it! I was playing with pen, paper, and coins for a bit.. and then on tabletop sim.. but this is fantastic!
I'm glad you like it! 😍
There is another reason. I have a snapshot of my MX-15 Debian Jessie 32 bit that fits easily on a CD and I can reinstall my system within 10 minutes.
And another reason. I don't want to be fooled and led around by the nose by the mafia anymore. I use 32 bit software because I am not stupid.
......what?
ah yes, the nose mafia
Are you eagerly awaiting Windows 12?
Wonderful implementation with lots of game juice. I also really appreciate the historical info and links included in the game! 10/10
Oh thank you! I was fascinated with this game since I first heard of it!
I enjoy playing against Irwin the most. He's the most challenging and we generally trade wins pretty evenly. However, I don't think he knows what he's doing in the alternate route mode. His strategy on the front half of the board is just as good as normal, but on the back half he never seems to press his advantage once he gets there.
But that's just my impression. Maybe I'm misinterpreting his priorities.
Edit: Yeah, he shows no desire to hold territory up there. He'll complete a course for a piece, rather than holding the rose. He doesn't seem to treat the up-board roses as important places to hold.
Yes, Irwin is much more reactive than Leonard and Leonard will be more aggressive in attempting to score.
"The Royal Game of Ur"? More like "The Leonard's Game of Weighted Die"
...fun game though, good job!
My only complaint (besides Leonhard the cheater) is that there's no way to cancel a click. I.e. when you click a piece, it doesn't move until you release the mouse button. This is misleading because it feels like you have the chance to move the mouse away to cancel the selection, but no matter where you put the mouse that piece will move the moment you release the button. Either make the move activate instantly ondown, or do the piece selection/collision/raycast/whatever onrelease.
I can asure you that Leonard doesn't cheat :D
Your feedback is duly noted!
On one hand, I want this lite enough to work on my phone.
But if I did, I'd never be able to leave the bathroom. This is so fun!
A mobile version is also something I've thought about!
a very nice execution of the game, but it'd more fun if we could have the variation route and the spacial rules for the tiles, like the tiles where pieces cannot be nocked off the board, or the tiles where pieces can be stacked on top of each other.
You can enable The route variation in The play menu ✌️ I don't know this stacked Stone tule? Where did you hear about it?
I used to play this game a lot on android, it had 3 or 4 different posible rules, and each tiles had different mechanics to them, one of them allowed you to stack pieces on top of each other, if you had more than one on that tile, they couldn't be removed, so these tiles were key in order to advance in the race but also to block the opponent. I triad the Egyptian game too but this one is much more fun.
This is a very old game so there's bound to be "house rules" floating around all over history :D
What an interesting game! And the sound design was very satisfying to roll and move.
Thanks! That's just me scraping stones on my cuttingboard :D
Awsome game, intuitive and has great production quality. It makes the game easy to learn and the AI is good too
Oh thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
Hi
I congratulate you, this is definitely the best looking digital adaption of this mysterious, ancient game out of the mists of early human history. The soundtrack helps to get immersed. Somehow I wish the opponents were called "Humbaba", "Enkiu" and "Gilgamesh" (from easy to hard) to fit the theme... ;) I just sent you some bucks as a sign of my gratitude.
There is only one thing I miss a bit: The option to turn off the automatic movement of the camera (when players change) and the ability to rotate the view myself.
Thanks alot! I might update this game at some point so these features are not out of the question 😃
These ancient boardgames are very interesting and you managed to give it the proper atmosphere. I'd love to see a similar treatment for Senet and Kalaha. A collection of such more or less obscure games from the early dawn of mankind, prepared in such an atmospheric way, would surely fill a nice niche and could sell well. I'd definitively buy them all. :)
I'd be lying if I'd say the thought hadn't crossed my mind.
You wouldn't happen to know if there's a resource for a universally accepted ruleset for Senet?
Unfortunately I don't know, no. I played this one some years ago and found it rather intriguing. It does not have the same strong atmosphere as your game does however: https://store.steampowered.com/app/391580/Egyptian_Senet/
There are many such ancient games which would deserve a revival. The game of Knossos for example: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6138/knossos.
I'm sure there are many more. I'm just discovering them myself. :)
Yeah I was also fascinated by Ur when I first heard of it. That's why I made this project to practise GameDev. It makes me feel a connection to people who lived thousands of years ago :)
You could also get 5 euros or dollars from me. But...
Can you provide a Linux version that works on a 32 bit system using glibc6 2.19? If not and you don't know why, ask the monkeys that provide the game engine you use!
I use Unity :D I could look into if a Linux Build works. For some reason I can't get a build for Mac working if I export it from a PC. I'll have to get back to you on this :D
It will not be possible to create a 32 bit version that works for me if the engine version is newer than 5.1. Ask the stupid monkeys why that is.
I'm curious, why are you running 32bit linux in 2023? Is it just to keep an old machine alive, or some other reason?
Both. I use a 32 bit operating system on a 64 bit computer from 2007. 64 bit operating systems usually run too slow. And I have several applications that work poorly or not at all on 64 bit operating systems. What sense does 64 bit software make? Apache Open Office for example is only offered as 32 bit version and works on every 64 bit computer. Many Linux distributors offer 32 bit versions of their systems e.g. MX-Linux (Debian), Salix (Slackware), Mageia (Mandriva), Puppy Linux. Why do game developers think they have to ignore this?
To whoever just bought this game for 5€. Thanks so much I hope you enjoy it! 😍
What did you think? Any feedback? 😌
The woodgrain on the table and the sandstone on the walls are free PBR textures but the carvings and modeling I did by myself. I also did handpaint the entire board and the gamepieces and dice. On the board I also handpainted the roughness and generated the normals in Photoshop (which is not entirely necessary).
"Kevin" is not much of a challenger :D He's meant to practise with, but if you can beat Irving you're doing great! I'm glad you're enjoying the game.
Thanks for the donation BTW! I really appreciate it!
yes, I tried to play the game but I am stuck looking at white bar
Too Bad. I don't know how to help you. For most users this works and it also Works on several different browsers and phones. Did you try The desktop version?