Senet

This is a shareware version of Senet (also known as the Game of Thirty Squares), an ancient egyptian board game and one of the oldest known games of humanity. The exact rules by which the game was played are still somewhat disputed among historians -- no rules have survived on papyri or wall paintings. This program uses a set of rules proposed by the egyptologist John Tait.

According to this rule set, the game is a race game similar to Backgammon. As with Backgammon, this game is largely based on luck, even if there are some tactical choices to be made. Each player has five tokens (cones or reels) and has to move them, using "casting sticks" (the Ancient Egyptian version of dice), from start to finish on an S-shaped path across a 30-square board. If a token lands of a square occupied by an enemy token, the enemy token must go back to the start. The first player who safely gets all his tokens to the end wins the game.

There are three special squares: A token on the central "Power and Life" square cannot be thrown off the board. Landing on the "Good" square gives you an extra throw. And landing on the "Water" square just before the end of the board makes the token return to the start.

During the game, you get interesting "Mummy Facts" about Ancient Egypt displayed in the lower left corner. Furthermore, the game comes with a tutorial explaining the rules and with a comprehensive help system, which also offers information about the game's history.