Play the Royal Game of Ur, the ancient Mesopotamian race game, free in your browser. Throw four binary dice, race your seven pieces, capture on the shared lane, land on rosettes for an extra turn, and bear off against the AI. No download required.
Each player owns seven pieces and shares a board of three rows. Your pieces travel along a fourteen-square track: four private squares in your own row, then eight squares down the shared middle lane, then two more private squares before they bear off the end. On your turn you throw four binary dice — each shows a 0 or a 1 — so you move one piece a total of zero to four squares. You may bring a new piece onto the track or advance one already in play, but you can never stack two of your own pieces on the same square. A roll of zero forfeits the turn.
Five squares on the board are marked with a rosette, and they are the heart of the game's tactics. Whenever you land on a rosette you immediately take another throw, so a lucky chain of rosettes can carry several pieces forward in one turn. A piece sitting on a rosette is also safe from capture. The eight middle squares form a shared lane that both players cross. If you land exactly on a square already holding an opponent's piece there, that piece is knocked all the way back to its start — a swing that can decide the game. The protected central rosette is the one shared square where no capture is allowed.
Because there is real luck in the dice, smart placement matters more than raw rolls. Try to grab the central rosette early: it gives a free throw, keeps your piece safe, and blocks the opponent from passing through it. Keep a piece or two on your own private squares where they cannot be captured while you wait for the right roll. Near the finish, remember that bearing a piece off requires the exact count to step past the last square, so leave yourself flexible numbers rather than stranding a piece that needs an unlikely roll. Balancing aggression in the shared lane against safe, steady progress is the key to winning.
The Royal Game of Ur takes its name from the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, where beautifully inlaid boards were buried in royal tombs nearly five thousand years ago. Clay tablets later recorded versions of its rules, making it one of the few ancient games whose play we can reconstruct with real confidence. It was a true ancestor of modern race games such as backgammon, spreading across the ancient Near East along trade routes. This browser version recreates the classic race with a thinking computer opponent so you can enjoy a piece of living history anywhere, with no download required.
The Royal Game of Ur is one of the oldest known board games, played in ancient Mesopotamia around 4,600 years ago. Two players race seven pieces each along a track and try to bear them all off first.
You throw four tetrahedral dice, each of which shows either 0 or 1, so your roll is their sum from 0 to 4. A roll of 0 means you cannot move and your turn passes to the opponent.
On the eight shared middle squares, landing exactly on an opponent's piece sends it all the way back to its start. Pieces on your private squares and on the safe central rosette can never be captured.
There are five rosette squares. Landing on any rosette gives you an immediate extra throw, and a piece resting on a rosette is safe — the central rosette in particular can never be captured or shared.
You win by being the first player to move all seven of your pieces along the full track and bear them off the end. Each piece must roll the exact number needed to leave the board.