Senet Deluxe
| Category | Price | Seller | Device |
|---|---|---|---|
| Games | $2.99 | Arthur Roolfs | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
Senet is an ancient Egyptian race game and the predecessor of our modern Backgammon. The oldest known form of the game is shown in a painting from the tomb of Hesy (circa 2686-2613 BCE). Many pictures of the game and artifacts have been discovered and are displayed in Museums around the world. The commonness of these finds indicates that the game was very popular in its time.
The main adversaries in Senet are the Spools and the Pyramids. These pawns follow a path from their start positions to the House of Horus in an inverted 'S'. The player moving all of his pawns off the board first wins. Fields on the Senet board are called houses. Some of these have special significance and are adorned with icons like the Ankh symbol. Instead of dice flattened sticks are used. Each stick has a bright side and a dark side. Every bright side is a point. If only dark sides are showing the player is awarded 5 points. When a 1, 4, or 5 is thrown the player gets another turn.
When moving into a field occupied by an opponent, the pieces switch places. If, however, the opponent's pawn is part of a row of two or more, it cannot be beaten. It is possible to 'jump' over an opponent if it isn't part of a row of 3 pieces or more. 3 pieces are considered a block and are an important strategic tool.
Through symbology Senet hints at the afterlife as seen from an Egyptian point of view. If one's piece is beaten on one of the last three fields or the jump over the House of Water is not successful one moves back to the house of Rebirth. In such the game alludes to reincarnation and the journey of the dead.
Senet Deluxe is a truly unique strategy game. It features great animation, a soundtrack, an intelligent adversary, enforceable backwards moves, highlighting for acceptable moves, game statistics and online help. Be prepared to spend many hours with the most popular game of the antiquity.
For more screenshots and several videos of the application in action, please visit the website indicated below.
Reviews
Good game
ZakKoch13
Ever since I was young I have been facsinated with Egypt. I'm so glad I've gotten to play this game. One improvement could be making it a two player game as well. That's all of the updates I can think of right now. But dtill great game.
FIX PLEASE!
Morphan Scout
After the update it keeps crashing at the title screen. Hope it gets fixed soon it's a great game.
Disappointing
ClarkM10
Nice little game, but the random generator for the move numbers is badly flawed. By throwing sticks (i.e., 50/50), you'd expect the ratio of 1,2,3,4,5 to be 4:6:4:1:1. By taking a large sample, it instead appears to be uniform, that is 1:1:1:1:1. There also appears to be a consistent, but slight, bias toward the AI getting 1,4,5, meaning it can move again. With the right distribution of move numbers, this is a great game of positioning, blocking, and knowing the odds of a particular space getting hit. With the uniform distribution of move numbers, it's nothing more than a race to get your pieces off the board quickly, hoping the AI doesn't run off an improbable string of "move agains" late in the game. There's no strategy or thought in that. Fix that, and I'd give it 4 stars. Add an option for 7 pieces per player at the start, and it is an enthusiastic 5.
Not fixed
Romanone
$6.99 app and still not working! Updated many times and still not fixed. DO NOT BUY !!!
Very disappointing.
GWGregg
The game is beautiful and I had high hopes. But as another reviewer observed (and I realized too late), the number generator is incorrect for the game. It does, indeed, appear to generate random numbers 1-5 with equal probability. This ruins the strategy of the game, which relies heavily on the unequal probability of throwing a particular number. They need to fix this in the next update. If it were fixed, it would be a 5-star game. As it is, it's not senet, but a senet-wannabe and not worth the $7.99. Very disappointed.
Unplayable on iPad2
vbspurs
I saw the Senet Deluxe HD sale, and remembered I had purchased the iPhone version. When I went to play it to see if it merited the upgrade, the game crashed each time. Reboot, reinstall, deleting apps in memory -- nothing works. It's a shame the developer doesn't update this to iOS4. As such, I cannot recommend it.
Great game
Эдик87
Works perfectly and has great graphics, the only thing missing is an option to play with a friend. It gets boring playing by yourself sometimes. But in any case great to pass the time with.
