About The World at Play

What we are doing

Humans have invented board games in every corner of the world. Some have been played for two and a half thousand years, others were designed in the last decade. Some need only a patch of dirt and a handful of seeds; others rest on a carefully engineered set of pieces. Most of them have never made it to the web in decent shape — the rules arrive incomplete, the opponent is not worth playing, or the whole thing sits behind a download and a sign-up form.

That is the work: find them one at a time and rebuild them properly for the browser. Complete rules, a board that feels right, and nothing between you and the first move.

Why we write the AI ourselves

A game without an opponent worth facing is just a rulebook. So every game here has an AI written for it — not a random mover, but something that actually calculates, adjustable from a welcoming beginner level to a demanding expert setting.

All of it runs inside your browser. That means no queue, no waiting, no disconnects — and it means your games stay with you.

What we care about

Research that holds up to questioning. Where a game's rules come from, which historical claims are documented and which are only legend — we try to keep these apart, and we show our sources on the page.

A rebuild worthy of the original. Every clause of every rule, every legal move, every search the AI runs — all of it is worth getting right, and then getting righter.

After that, only one thing is left: we hope you enjoy the games.