Twenty Squares — The Royal Game of Ur

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Twenty Squares — The Royal Game of Ur

By captainbombs

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The world's oldest playable board game, rebuilt in Minecraft. Race 7 pieces past your rival, roll tetrahedral dice, and receive the Babylonian tablet's omens as real effects. Flip the board for Senet. Solo vs spirits, hotseat, or multiplayer.

Mod Loaders
Minecraft
26.2
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About

Description

Twenty Squares — The Royal Game of Ur

An echo of the past you can actually play.

In 1928, archaeologists digging the Royal Cemetery of Ur (c. 2600–2400 BC) found a board of shell, lapis and red limestone. Nobody knew how it was played — until British Museum curator Irving Finkel deciphered a Babylonian rules tablet from 177 BC. This mod rebuilds that 4,600-year-old game as a complete, playable Minecraft system: craft the board, sit down, and play.

How to play

  1. Craft the board — lapis, a nautilus shell, planks and red sandstone (the shell, lapis and red limestone of the real artifact)
  2. Place it and right-click. Play vs the Spirits (AI), Join with a friend on any client, or hotseat solo
  3. Roll the four tetrahedral dice, then click a glowing piece. Race all 7 of your pieces around the twenty squares and bear them off — first to finish wins

The rules are Finkel's reconstruction: 7 pieces each, captures on the 8 shared middle squares, rosettes that grant an extra roll and shelter from capture, and an exact roll required to bear off.

The omens

The Babylonians treated the game as fortune-telling, and the rules tablet attaches an omen to the marked squares. Land on a rosette and the tablet's words come true:

Omen Effect
"You will become powerful like a lion." Strength
"You will draw fine beer." A drinkable Fine Beer item
"You will find a true friend." Luck
"You will stand in exalted places." Absorption
"May your herds prosper." Saturation + experience

Two games, one board

Real ancient game boxes carried Senet on the reverse side — so does this one. Sneak-right-click to flip the board: 30 squares, casting sticks, swap-captures, defended pieces, and the dreaded House of Water that sweeps your piece back.

Details

  • Multiplayer: seat-based, server-authoritative — two players, one board
  • Solo: hotseat mode, or a heuristic AI opponent that captures, defends and races
  • In-world rendering: pieces stand on the block in 3D — no GUI needed to watch a match
  • Presentation: dice, trays and move highlights in the GUI; sounds and particles for every roll, capture, rosette and victory
  • Persistent: matches survive save & reload
  • Modpack-friendly: single self-contained mechanic, no worldgen, no dependencies beyond Fabric API

Made for CurseForge ModJam 2026 — "Echoes of the Past". Source on GitHub (see the Issues/Source links). MIT licensed.