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, including the ones behind the counter. 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 Sixteen games stand open on the shelf — two from each of the eight crates, yours for good, with nothing asked. Fourteen more wait in the cellar behind a single purchase: no subscription, nothing that expires, nothing that resets. The house allows three take-backs a game; the cellar lifts that too. 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.