Senet

Senet is an ancient Egyptian game found by archaeologists dating back to 3500 BC. Not many rules were created for the games. It was hard for the archaeologists to decipher these rules. There were six main rules. Senet is a game containing thirty blocks, with seven pawns for each player’s out of the two. Yes it is only a two person game.

The pawns of the players are placed alternatively till all seven pawns are used. The player has to roll a die or stick and based on the outcome move his pawn. Block numbers 26,27,28,29 have special characteristics if you will. So if the player lands on the block 26, he has to stop there even if he has got a greater dice roll. If the pawn lands on block 27 then the pawn is sent back to block 15 called the “House of re-birth”. On landing upon block 28 and 29 the pawn can move only if a 3 is rolled for block 28 and a 2 for block 29.

New Rules: We have made slight tweaks to the original rules to make it a bit more interesting.

For deciding who is to play first, the highest dice roll is considered to be player one. While the game if a dice is rolled and 6 shows up then the player has to skip his chance. Upon landing on block 26 or the “Falcon”, the player can move the opponents pawn to any block he wills as long as the pawn to be moved is between block 21 and 25. Player can do this just once per pawn arrival. Upon reaching the last block (30), the player has to roll a 1 and not any number to get his pawn out.

Shown above is the board layout of the game Senet.