Egyptian Senet
Ancient Egypt Game of King TUT
Ratings
Age
9+
Category
Board
Languages
English
Mon May 24 2021
+ Added Support For Latest iOS, and Enhanced Devices Compatibility.
Egyptian Senet brings the game of the Pharaohs to life. Dating back to 2620 BCE, Senet is a race game where players move pieces along a 30-square board according to the toss of sticks. Navigate through special squares like the 'House of Water' and 'House of Happiness' as you compete against a challenging AI. With immersive visuals and authentic rules, it’s a perfect blend of history and strategy.
Dinsun Expert Review
Our Expert Score
Egyptian Senet is a wonderful digital preservation of one of the world's oldest known board games. This app manages to take a game played by Pharaohs over 3,000 years ago and make it feel fresh and accessible for a modern mobile audience. It’s a game of both luck and strategy, often described as a spiritual ancestor to Backgammon.
The visual presentation is appropriately atmospheric, featuring stone-textured boards and ancient Egyptian motifs. The gameplay follows the most widely accepted historical rules: you race your pieces across a 30-square S-shaped path, navigating 'special' squares that can either protect you or send you back to the start. The strategic depth comes from blocking your opponent and managing your 'tosses' (the ancient equivalent of dice).
While the AI can feel frustratingly lucky at times—leading to some 'cheating' accusations in reviews—it provides a solid challenge for a single-player experience. The inclusion of a clear ruleset is helpful for newcomers. It’s a quiet, contemplative game that offers a fascinating look into the past while providing a genuinely engaging puzzle to solve.
Features
Authentic Ancient Rules
Atmospheric Egyptian Visuals
Challenging AI Opponent
Concise Rules Tutorial
Smooth Touch Controls
Tips & Walkthrough
Square 27 (House of Water) is dangerous; land on it and you're sent back to Square 15. Squares 26, 28, 29, and 30 require exact rolls to bear off your pieces.
Gameplays
In Senet, tossing a 1, 3, or 6 allows you to move and then toss again. Use these extra turns to leapfrog over your opponent's pieces.
Screenshot
Q&A
Square 27 is the 'House of Water.' If you land there, your piece is sent back to square 15.
Ratings & Reviews
Wonderful
Sat Mar 06 2021 Deber76We recently learned of the existence of Senet thru another app. Researched and then found this app. First, I love this game...has to rank as one of my favorite board games now. And this app is perfect. Good visuals, good options (for turning off the music and the hints if you wish.). I do feel like the AI “cheats” a little bit as he always seems to get the toss he needs right when he needs it, particularly in the final stretch of the game... but you can’t have everything. :-). Great job on the app... thank you. Well worth the cost. I could do without the scary sounding voice greeting upon start up. The only thing I would change is to tilt the view so you looking a little more from the top down, I occasionally hit the wrong piece by accident when they are behind another.
Very Challenging
Mon Oct 05 2020 JFaviaEasy to learn but not so easy to win. You can be way ahead and things turn on a dime during the last couple of plays. The sore losers who “want their money back” should try playing as two players and see how they fare. Maybe they just aren’t as skilled as they think they are. I win about 40% of the time, and the game can swing in my favor at the last minute. So this game keeps my interest way more than most.
It's almost on point
Sat Mar 26 2016 PurpleSun13This game is awesome! I love Egypt and their mythology, this game does have it's weak points the worst aspect of the game is that 1)you don't get rewards or anything that may change up the game a little to make sure you don't get bored with it 2) not all the rules are the right ones from the Egyptian game "Senet", you usually don't have to wait long to take your turn and when you toss the sticks and you can't move any piece that number you have to move back that many squares and if you are in the in between world then you can bump people back to the house of birds and things like that. The problem is all you do is knock them into the house of water. Other than that this game is awesome! I played pharaoh mode (you can pick a mode) and I won! This game is almost on point.
Really fun, but...
Sat Sep 30 2023 a48murphThis is a totally awesome game...until it isn't. I've played it for several months, but finally got so frustrated I have given up on it. My biggest problem is with the app's random number generator. It isn't so random. The, "opponent" will get multiple rolls within a turn, but, "Player 1" rarely does. Many times I've removed all but one piece when the app has removed only one or two and, because of the, "luck" of the rolls, I end up losing. Another thing that's upsetting is that, having lost a game, the app IMMEDIATELY tells me I'm a, "LOSER". But, on the rare occasions I've won, it takes its own sweet time telling me I've won. I would love to see these issues addressed, but I doubt I ever will, because I removed this app from ALL my devices. Also, take not of the developers' responses to reviews: they're always the same, and NEVER to a less than stellar review. What an arrogant attitude. Good luck.
Great game!
Tue Sep 08 2015 Xty3This is a wonderful, fun, challenging strategic game. I would recommend it to anyone and plan on purchasing the actual game board. The only reason why I didn't give it five stars is because there are still some aspects of the game I don't understand. Don't get me wrong, there are instructions and it's easy to pick up and I've become quite good at gameplay but there are some moves that I don't quite comprehend like why some throws only allow certain pawns to move and not others, in a way it doesn't get in the way of gameplay because the computer makes the call but I would like to know more of how the rules work and the meaning behind some of the images on the board. The game is stable with no glitches.
Almost there
Mon Apr 17 2017 cakefordinnerThe only faults I find are the slow gameplay (the scarab indicator needs to move to the next player immediately) and the annoying pop up screen after you bear off 5 tokens and then when you win (just show a random screen at the end showing "win/lose")...and having to roll when you have no moves - 10 times in one instance. You should just skip your turn. Fix those and this is a 5* game in my opinion. Doesn't need any more bells and whistles. I'm not bored at all...except for the aforementioned. Edit: I reduced my rating from 4* to 2* The rolls ought to be random (see a to me they were, once), however the AI consistently gets 4, 5 and 1, in multiple, consecutive rolls. So irritating I shut down the game quite often. Fix this!
Good game
Thu Jun 15 2023 sergiii0212In Kemet (ancient Egypt) this game was played daily and the individual who won was favored by the gods and were given good luck as a sign of it but if the gods were unhappy with an individual and they had something in life to work on for that day they’d lose the game. I play this game daily and when I lose I make changes to benefit my heart (I.e. clean my room, wash dishes, reach out to a friend, etc..)
Awesome Game and Well Designed and Programmed
Wed Dec 30 2015 WRS15743This is the best of the Senet games I've come across. The developer did an incredible job. Game play is smooth, challenging and fair. Design is gorgeous. This is one of my favorite iPhone games. There's a reason Senet has been around for thousands of years; it's not hard to learn, but the strategy is challenging (without being overly frustrating). Great job, developer, on a great implementation of this classic!
