Bygone
ANCIENT BOARD GAMES FOR YOUR PHONE

The oldest games in the world, told straight.

Bygone gathers board games people have played for thousands of years. Play the computer, a friend across the table, or someone online. Every game says plainly how much of its rules history really left behind.

See the four games
Coming soon to Google Play
Coming soon to iOS
Runs on Android 7 and up.
Senet being played in Bygone, on a painted box in a room based on Queen Nefertari's tomb The Royal Game of Ur being played in Bygone, on a shell and lapis board lit by a torch

How much is really known?

Most collections hand you a modern guess as if it were carved on a tomb wall. Every game in Bygone wears a badge that says how well the record supports the rules you are playing.

Attested
The rules come down in writing, or in play that never stopped.
Nine Men's Morris
Reconstructed
Rebuilt from solid evidence, with the gaps filled in by scholars.
None at launch
Conjectural
The board survives. The rules do not. What you play is a modern best reading.
Royal Game of Ur, Senet
Modern
A modern set of rules carrying an old name.
Mancala

Four games at launch

Each one has its own board, its own room and its own music, drawn from where its evidence survives.

Mancala in Bygone: a carved board on worn stone

Mancala

Modern
WHAT SURVIVES
Rows of pits cut into rock, and a row of holes carries no date. The oldest board anyone can date is pottery from a Roman bathhouse at Gedera, 2nd to 3rd century AD.
WHAT YOU PLAY
Kalah, a set of rules designed in 1940. Six pits a side, four seeds in each. It goes by the name people search for, and the app says so plainly: "Board ancient, ruleset 1940."
THE TABLE
A carved board on a worn stone court, with music from the Horn of Africa.
The Royal Game of Ur in Bygone: a shell and lapis board by torchlight

Royal Game of Ur

Conjectural
WHAT SURVIVES
The board, attested from about 2600 BC.
WHAT YOU PLAY
A modern reconstruction, not a surviving ancient ruleset. Seven pieces a side, four dice, five rosettes.
THE TABLE
A shell and lapis board in a chamber lit by one torch, with lyre, harp and reed pipe.
Nine Men's Morris in Bygone: a board cut into an oak bench in a cloister

Nine Men's Morris

Attested
WHAT SURVIVES
Ovid, about 8 AD, describes a smaller three-piece game of the same family. A Nine Men's Morris board was buried with the Gokstad Viking ship about 900 AD, and Alfonso's book of games sets down the rules in 1283.
WHAT YOU PLAY
The standard game. Three in a row makes a mill and takes a man. Down to three men, you may fly.
THE TABLE
A board cut into an oak bench in the cloister of Gloucester Cathedral, in window light that creeps across the wood.
Senet in Bygone: a painted box in a room based on Queen Nefertari's tomb

Senet

Conjectural
WHAT SURVIVES
Boards and pieces. No ancient rules survive.
WHAT YOU PLAY
A modern reading of Kendall's 1978 reconstruction, the way most people play it today. Five pieces each and four throwing sticks.
THE TABLE
A painted box on a sledge, in a room based on Queen Nefertari's tomb, lit by a small oil lamp.

Sit down and play

Against the computer

Four levels, from Learning to Master. Even Master slips now and then, the way a person does.

Two players, one phone

Set the phone between you and take turns, the way these games were always played.

Online, live

Post a challenge or take one, casual or ranked. Thirty seconds a turn, so a game is something you sit down and finish. Or just watch a match in progress.

New to a game?

Every game has a walkthrough on the real board and a plain rules page.

Your table, your look

The shop has more boards and rooms for every game, from an old library to a starship, each room with its own music. There are avatars, frames and name colors for your player card too.

You pay in coins, which you earn by playing or can buy. Coins buy looks, never an advantage in a game.

The carved mancala board every player starts with
Carved mancala board
The original, free
Gravity Wells, a mancala board from the shop where the pits are stars
Gravity Wells
Mancala board, Prestige
The Tactical Table, a Royal Game of Ur board from the shop drawn in light
The Tactical Table
Ur board, Prestige
Pull up a chair.
Later on the table: Bagh-Chal, Backgammon, Chess, Go and more.
Coming soon to Google Play
Coming soon to iOS