GAME PROJECTS

Royal Game of Ur

GAMEPLAY

The Royal Game of Ur is an ancient boardgame where two players compete to race to the finish while blocking each other and kicking your opponents stones off the board. The game has three AI opponents with different difficulties or local multiplayer. Having been fascinated with this historical game for years I decided to make a polished digital version.

ROLE & DUTIES

Solo developer

— Programmer

— AI Designer

— 3d artist

— Sound designer

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Everything is hand-made except for the CC0 background music and ambiance. I drew the board manually based on historical references.

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DESIGN CHALLENGES

Programming the AI opponents required me to figure out what are the characteristics of a good move in the game and how to represent those characteristics with numbers. By tweaking the weight of characteristics - such as opportunities for aggression, board progress or danger avoidance - many personalities of AI can be achieved.
I developed AI-strategies by making them play againts each other at superspeed and compared results.

Gameplay screenshot
You can make the AI play againts itself.
History of the game
In-game written rules
The original board at the British Museum
Historically accurate dice, ancient d4
No items found.

GAME PROJECTS

Iiro Peltonen