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Chapter 7
A Videogame Designer’s
Guide to Non-Digital
Game Magic
7.1 THE MAGIC OF ANCIENT GAMES
Game systems that simulate magic or communicate intimations of
enchantment have existed since prehistoric and ancient times, long before
the invention of any videogame. Some anthropologists believe that dice
were used as divination tools in order to tell the future, just as many games
of chance were viewed as reective of the gods’ will. e ancient Egyptian
game of Senet used its mechanics and board layout to represent and simu-
late the soul’s progress through the aerlife. Archaeologist Peter Piccione
observes that while Senet began strictly as ...