Historical Games And My Thoughts On Them

Senet

Senet is one of the oldest board games to have been found, it's origins are Egyptian and as with most ancient games the rules are a topic of some debate, thankfully some educated guesses have been made so most version found today contains a logical rule set.

Fundamentally it is a simple race game, with 2 or more players racing five members of their team across a track of 30 squares with a few obstacles in their way, it is purely a game of luck as movement depends on the "roll" of a flat stick, basically a binary outcome.

Overall the game is nothing to get excited about gameplay wise, but its certainly interesting to see how a culture so ancient can come up with board games so similar to ones we make and play today.

Tablua

Tablua was invented by a greek soldier during the Tojan War, at first glance the game appears to be fairly complex and possibly even daunting to learn to play, that said upon getting further into it you'd find it bears a striking resemblance to backgammon and is in fact one of its ancestors.

The game itself is based around luck, everything happens by the roll of three dice.

Tafl Games

The "Tafl" family of games, Tafl, Brandub, Ard Ri, Hnefatafl, Alea Evangelii, Tablut and Tawlbwrdd are all Germanic strategy games played on checkered boards, all the games feature a 2:1 ratio of pieces fighting and a king that must either be captured or escorted to safety, the only real difference between them is the size of the grids and amount of pieces.

Tafl games are purely based around strategy, there is no element of luck to it, one must think ahead and use wits and cunning to beat their opponent.