A digital environment for the world's oldest board game
The Royal Game of Ur is a board game that was played in ancient Mesopotamia, at the cradle of civilisation, as early as 2600 B.C. This dice-based racing game, similar to Ludo or Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, was played by both commoners and kings for a period lasting over two thousand years. This means that for the people whom we would call ancient, this game was already a relic of ancient history.
Together with a team of three professors from Leiden University and five other students from HKU and UU, I worked on an immersive, historically accurate game experience that aims to recreate the sensation of playing the Royal Game of Ur in its original setting.
It can be downloaded for free on Steam:
🔗 Steam store page
As the "product owner" of this project, I was the designated shot caller when it came to determining the direction of the experience, and responsible for making sure that all our design decisions were aligned with that direction.
This required me to stay extra critical of the things we worked on, calling back others - and myself - whenever our curiosity made us stray too far from the intended experience.
For example, (?)
Something something slice of life, best of both worlds (royal environment, commoner's life)... our sources of (archaeological) research... always letting the Historical Accuracy Watchdogs look over our interpretation of said research we worked with...
...to make the characters relatable...
UI when selecting/moving pieces, customizing the game rules...
last updated on 13 nov 2025
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