Senet — the journey across thirty squares
One of the oldest board games known. Its rules are lost; the version played today is a scholar's reconstruction. Pieces travel a winding path of thirty squares, and late in the game came to stand for the soul's journey after death.
From Senet, from ancient Egypt.
What it shows a designer
A game whose rules were lost and had to be reconstructed from boards and texts. It shows that any set of rules is a choice, and how a path, a few special squares and a swap rule can carry meaning about a journey.
Credits
- Made by
- Ancient Egypt; rules reconstructed by Timothy Kendall in 1978
- This version
- A short teaching version after Kendall's reconstruction: five pieces each, four coins for the throwing sticks, and two special squares
- Sources
- rammuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Make-and-play-Senet.pdf
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senet
What you need
- paper with a board of 3 rows of 10 squares
- 5 pieces each, of two kinds
- 4 coins
How to play
- The board. Draw 3 rows of 10 squares. Number the path 1 to 10 along the top row left to right, 11 to 20 back along the middle row, and 21 to 30 along the bottom row. Mark square 15 as the House of Rebirth and square 27 as the Water.
- Set up. Place the ten pieces on squares 1 to 10, alternating colours.
- Throw. Toss four coins: one, two, three or four heads move that many squares; no heads moves 5.
- Move. Move one of your pieces forward by the throw. You can't land on your own piece. Landing on a lone opposing piece swaps the two. Two of an opponent's pieces side by side protect each other: you can't land on either.
- The Water. A piece that lands on 27 goes back to the House of Rebirth, square 15.
- Win. A piece leaves the board when a throw takes it past 30. The first player to take all five pieces off wins.
After playing, talk about
- How did the swap rule change where you wanted to land?
- Did knowing the board's later meaning change how the Water felt?
- Which rules would you change if you were reconstructing it?
Its blocks
How its blocks were checked against BoardGameGeek
- Senet: partly checkable, nothing against it. roll and move: confirmed (Roll / Spin and Move). race to finish: confirmed (Race). direct confrontation: not checkable. chance with mitigation: not checkable. mortality and loss: not checkable. take turns: not checkable.
In boardgameBuilder, Open game puts its blocks on the canvas. Changed, the same file can come back here from Propose a game.