Are you genuinely serious?

Alan was a child. He had no concept of what had happened or what was happening to him. It wasn't just some random Amazonian-type jungle he was sucked into; it was an ancient unending overgrown labyrinth of tangle and undergrowth containing some of the most aggressive and deadliest versions of predators known to man.

Most of the unfortunate people who play that game are in there for five minutes whilst the others roll the dice and wait their turn. Those who get sucked in later in the game have at least some inkling of what to expect, and can still cling to the hope of their turn coming up soon.

Alan was in there for thirty years. Thirty years of learning how to survive in a harsh and hostile environment, with no hope of return, and no understanding of what he did wrong to deserve this fate. The only other human who could have at least served as a father figure of sorts is a mad hunter who wants him dead. Can you imagine the number of times Alan must have approached The Hunter just to strike up some kind of discourse about what is going on or to test the limits of his compassion, only to have to flee for his life each and every time? That can mess up a kid.

It's a real testament to Alan's forgiving disposition that he doesn't blame any particular person for his situation, but the situation itself. Even after time rewound and he got to live out his life as normal human being, the mental scars are likely still there etched into his mind.

And don't even get me started on Sarah. She saw what happened with her own two eyes, and every single adult in her life told her that it wasn't real. Because how could it be? And yet her childhood friend went missing right in front of her. How can you even deal with the sheer guilt of an event that people say you hallucinated?

Goddamn that film breaks my heart.

You underestimate the wild

Except for the constant parasites.

You can buy copies of it on Amazon

We can't know for certain the rules we now attribute to this game are what were originally played though. The rules were essentially made up in a way that made sense to what the board looks like and what was found with it. There is no documentation on this found anywhere in history.

The tricky thing was we didn't have the original rules, we had rules for how to modify it into a gambling game, written with the assumption that everyone already knew how to play, so we needed to derive the original rules from that.

It's actually a quite good game. I hope to get mine signed by Irving Finkel. Sadly, he was not in when I bought a replica at the British Museum.

Yep, I have a copy. It's pretty fun.

I wonder how archeologists would interpret Monopoly if they found only the game board

Sounds just like Ludo

Knew before clicking it had to be Irving Finkel...my favourite influencer

That was a fantastic video, thank you!! And yes the curator was amazing. The shade one can throw when using posh language..!

Beyond the curator, the music selection and timing was brilliant; I'll check out some more videos. Thanks again!

Editing to add: that guy is an absolute gem. I watched some others and has brought to my life a joy I didn't know I was missing

What an interesting video, and what a peculiar curator. I think he's great.

Are there any other videos where he gets into the more advanced rules written on the cuneiform tablet?

The Royal Game of Ur

Yep. I actually bought one of the replicas from the museum after I watched the video.

Commonly artistic items of game sets would be made for largely show purposes and rarely or never used. So it wouldn't be surprising if it was made and then sealed in a box for a funeral wealthy collection or storage. We still do that with fancy metal dice that most people will never roll.

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Ouija board explodes and the lights start flickering. The front door slams shut and you can hear it locking.