Ancient Egyptian Mehen: The Forbidden Game of the Snake

Ancient Egyptian Mehen: The Forbidden Game of the Snake is a shareware
implementation of an Old Egyptian board game, probably dating from before
2,700 BC — nearly 5,000 years old! It was played in religious ceremonies and
was probably one of the first games to be banned by government, possibly due
to religious reasons.

The game is played by two or more players on a spiral board. The exact rules
of the game are not preserved, but there is a game with a very similar game
board played by Nubian nomads and it is believed that the rules are quite near
to the original.

According to these rules, Mehen is essentially a race game, but one with
some twists. Two or more players, each one with one to six marbles (numbers of
players and marbles can be selected before starting the game), go chase down
the spiral to its the center of the spiral — symbolizing Ra, the Sun God —
and back again by throwing casting sticks (the Old Egyptian version of dice).

The first twist is that the player does not move immediately after throwing
the sticks, instead they accumulate the results until they throw a 2, and then
move pieces according to the results. This gives the game some tactical depth
as often there is more than one choice how to move the marbles. When the
player moves onto a field that is occupied by another player’s marble, this
one is bumped to the bumping marble’s old position. Another twist is that 1
counts as a special throw, a so-called Shinyat (meaning magic spell). Shinyat
must be used for entering the board at the beginning of the game, for entering
the central square and for leaving it again.

Once a player has successfully traveled the spiral in and out with all their
marbles, this player wins. This doesn’t mean the game ends! The winning player
now starts the whole travel again, with only a lion and at double speed. As
soon as the lion has entered and left the central case, any marble he passes
is devoured by him. The game ends when the lion has left the board and the
number of marbles each player could safely bring home determines the ranking.

The game comes with a tutorial explaining game, some atmospheric MIDI
background music and ‘Mummy Facts’ about Old Egypt that are displayed from
time to time.

Ancient Egyptian Mehen: The Forbidden Game of the Snake