Ur: Game of Kings

The oldest board game we can still play: dug out of the Royal Cemetery at Ur, decoded from a Babylonian tablet, rebuilt for your phone. Three AI opponents and hot seat.

Four and a half thousand years ago, in the city of Ur, people played this game. The boards were buried with kings; the rules survived on a clay tablet in Babylon. Ur: Game of Kings is that game - the oldest board game we can still play by its own rules - rebuilt for your phone.

A RACE WITH TEETH Seven pieces a side. Four pyramid dice that give you 0 to 4. A private lane in, a shared lane through the middle, a private lane out. Land on an opponent's piece in the middle and it goes straight back to the start — one roll can undo half a game. Rosettes grant an extra throw, and the rosette in the centre is safe ground no one can take from you. Bear all seven pieces off with an exact roll to win.

The rules follow Irving Finkel's reconstruction of the British Museum tablet — the ruleset everyone plays today.

THREE OPPONENTS • Scribe — moves at whim. A gentle place to learn. • Priest — reads the board and takes what you leave open. • King — thinks several rolls ahead and rarely misses a capture.

ALSO IN THE BOX • Hot seat: two players on one device, with your own names on the score line. • An illustrated tutorial covering the path, the rosettes and the captures. • Statistics: your record against each opponent, win streaks, pieces captured and lost, fastest win. • Automatic save — close the app mid-turn and pick the game up later. • Ten languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian. • Plays entirely offline. No account, no sign-up, no online play. • A hand-drawn Mesopotamian board: lapis blue, ochre and shell white.

Free, with an interstitial ad after a finished game. A single "Remove Ads" purchase turns them off for good.