Ur Game: The Game of Ancient Gods Reviews

Nice implementation of an ancient game. Playing against an animated IA is fun. It has 3 levels of difficulty, so everyone can play it. I really like it.

Love it, simple but entertaining, you need like 2 minutes to understand the rules and go. There are emotion expressions which make it funny, but I like it more with voice chat.

Not the best UI, but the game is nice and plays well, while also being the only simulator for this tabletop. runs on my trusty toaster, can enter for a quicky and leave, offers a 2 player mode on the same pc, and you get to play as a Bird-person with a Thong. 9/10 - wont ask for a refund from Ea-Nasir

Fun implementation of The Royal Game of Ur. Auto-roll is nice. It would be nice if there was a mode to automatically play if there's only one move.

Recently watched that British Museum Royal Game of UR video. Then realized I forgot I had this game. Very well put together!

The AI cheats something awful on Expert mode. It will give you as many blank rolls as it needs to slow you down if you really start beating it. A shame really because it's not that hard of a game to develop a good AI for without resorting to messing with the random chance of the rolls.

Pretty chill game, I would appreciate some little gambling on the side Edit: bought it to few friends coz the multiplayer is cool

Great game! It's an earlier version of backgammon, dating back 4500 years, when it was known in most parts of the world. There is this hilarious video [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I [/url] of the curator who actually translated the rules from an ancient clay tablet playing this. The AI is not bad and you can play it against steam-friends, though sadly there is no public matchmaking. Extra points for the Horus(?)-like avatars. Still getting updated with things like daily challenges.

This game is truly something special... Just close your eyes for a moment and you will picture being an ancient Sumerian plebeian who is squeezing in a quick and competitive game of Ur before casually sacrificing a few children to Baal.

"Ur Game" is a PC conversion of the oldest board game in the recorded history of mankind that we still know how to play, the "Royal Game of Ur". In this game, two players compete in moving all their 7 tokens from a "start" area to a "finish" area. Movement is turn-based. In each turn, the player throws dice that result in a number between 0 and 4, then he moves one of his tokens forward by the respective number of tiles. The board contains safe spaces for each player as well as a stretch that both players' tokens must pass. In this shared area, a player can send an opposing player's token back to the starting area by landing on its space. The game is thus similar to Pachisi/Parcheesi. The game includes luck elements (the dice rolls) as well as skill (the decision of which token to move). Different strategies are possible: You can play aggressively and focus on resetting your opponent's progress, or you can focus on moving your own tokens as fast as possible. Lining up several tokens in your safe area takes more time than just moving one token forward, but makes it easier to reset an opponent's token once it enters the shared area. However, once you _do_ reset an opponent's token, your own token now sits on that vulnerable space. There are also a few spaces on the board that grant you an extra die throw, and deciding when to enter and leave those is another important decision. The game tends to get close and dramatic toward the end. This happens because in order to win, you must bring all your 7 tokens to the finish area. Naturally, the fewer tokens you have left, the fewer tactical options you have for movement, so the player who's in front will often have a tactical disadvantage that allows the trailing player to catch up. In addition to that, tokens must hit the finish area exactly (they are not allowed to overshoot), so the end game typically shows one player trying to get the correct die roll to move their last token to the finish, while the other player tries to move all _their_ remaining tokens along the now unopposed shared area. I don't think the game provides enough complexity and tactical options to keep a contemporary boardgamer's attention for long, but it _is_ enjoyable for quick casual rounds, and it's easy to understand why this game maintained its popularity for millennia. Let's take a look at this PC conversion specifically. It sports faithful, crisp graphics and even a 3D scene with animations for both opponents. Controls are intuitive and quick. A video tutorial explains the rules clearly. While the game won't win awards for its presentation, it's a polished product with good attention to detail. The developers definitely went above and beyond the call of duty here - not by a huge margin, but in an age where lots of games are designed after "minimum viable product" principles, that's nevertheless much appreciated. The game provides an AI opponent with three available difficulty levels. I only played the hardest difficulty so far ("Expert AI"), and unfortunately it wasn't very strong. It could handle itself well in the early and mid game, but failed to play a compelling endgame. Its attempts at bringing its last few tokens to the finish didn't show a good grasp of strategy, and when it was trailing behind, it kept strengthening its starting zone instead of trying to hunt down my last token. I would expect this AI to lose against a skilled opponent most of the time, though it should be strong enough to get away with an occasional victory if the dice roll in its favor. (Edit: In response to a forum post, the developer updated the AI on the next day, and provided another update 4 days later. I haven't played since then, but I'm definitely impressed by the speedy response!) In addition to playing against the AI, the game offers a local hotseat mode (two players taking turns on the same PC) as well as online matches against another player ("public" and "ranked"). To start a ranked match, you need to invite someone from your friend list, but they need to own the game. Applying for a "public" match apparently tries to match you with another player who is also currently looking for a public match. The game does not show a list of currently running games, nor a list of people currently available to play. That's a bit clunky, but at least the option to play online is there, which is more than many other games provide. Unfortunately there is no campaign or story mode, which would have provided more mid-term motivation. There are a few achievements to get for those who are motivated by that, though. Challenge modes that give you a handicap (e.g. more tokens or less dice), or modes with changed rules, could also have been interesting. But it seems that the developers' goal was simply to provide an accurate rendition of this historic game rather than expanding on it, which is fine, especially considering its price point. I recommend the game to boardgame aficionados as well as people interested in the history of games. The game is fairly priced and well worth a look. Just don't expect to spend a lot of time with it, especially if you usually want more complexity in the games you play.