Lamplight Tavern

Thirty board games that people played for centuries and then stopped.

Senet was buried with pharaohs. Hnefatafl crossed the North Sea in longships. Toguz Kumalak is still played on the steppe. Liubo was lost so thoroughly that its rules had to be reconstructed from a poem and a handful of excavated boards. Each one is here, with a board you can read, rules in plain words, and an opponent who will actually play you.

THE INNKEEPER
Every game has an opponent at three strengths — tipsy, sober, sharp. He is not a difficulty slider bolted onto a solitaire app: each game has its own engine, written for that game's shape.

TONIGHT AT THE TAVERN
One game a night, drawn for everyone at once — the same game, the same strength, the same side, the same dice. Five tries before midnight. Win, and the streak carries. The nightly challenge is free forever and reaches every one of the thirty games.

RULES YOU CAN ACTUALLY LEARN FROM
Every game explains itself: what the pieces do, what wins, and — where a reconstruction was necessary — what is documented and what is our best reading of the evidence. Illegal moves are refused with the reason, in the innkeeper's own voice, so the board teaches while you play.

NOTHING LEAVES YOUR PHONE
No account. No sign-up. No advertising identifier, no analytics, no tracking of any kind. The app makes no network calls at all — not one — so it works on a plane, in a tunnel, and on a phone that has never been online. Your streak and your language live on your device and nowhere else.

THE SHELF AND THE CELLAR
All thirty games stand open — every crate on the shelf and everything the cellar holds, yours for good, with nothing asked and nothing to buy. Take back as many moves as you like; the house has stopped counting.

THE THIRTY
Merels · Royal Game of Ur · Hnefatafl · Fox & Geese · Senet · Latrunculi · Bagh-Chal · Patolli · Puluc · Awithlaknannai · Oware · Fanorona · Yoté · Bao · Konane · Surakarta · Pachisi · Chaturanga · Seega · Mak-yek · Ming Mang · Nyout · Daldøs · Tabula · Liubo · Alquerque · Toguz Kumalak · Dara · Dou Shou Qi · Sittuyin

Eight languages: English, Deutsch, Français, Español, 简体中文, 日本語, हिन्दी, Tiếng Việt. Game names stay as their own traditions have them.