DOWNFALL VS HOUNDS AND JACKALS

Downfall is a two-player game for players aged 7 and older, first marketed by the Milton Bradley Company in 1970. The game consists of a vertical board with five slotted dials on each side. Each player starts with ten numbered tokens or discs at the top of the board. The object of the game is to move the discs to the bottom of the board by turning the dials. Players alternate turns moving the dials and cannot move a dial that their opponent has just moved. The winner is the first player to move all of their discs into the tray at the bottom. An advanced version of the rules dictates that the discs arrive in the tray in numerical order. Since neither player can see the other's board, it is common to inadvertently advance - or hinder - the opponent's gameplay. The game rewards forward thinking and planning; players may try to "trap" their opponent into turning a dial that will advance their own disc, while trying to ensure that their own discs are not caught and dropped out of order. The game is currently available in the UK under the name New Downfall, manufactured and marketed by Hasbro. The new version follows the same rules but has a more futuristic design in red and yellow. The game's box art is parodied on the cover of Expert Knob Twiddlers, an album by Mike & Rich (Mike Paradinas & Richard D. James).

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Hounds and jackals is the modern name given to an ancient Egyptian game that is known from several examples of gaming boards and gaming pieces found in excavations. The modern name was invented by Howard Carter, who found one complete gaming set in a Theban tomb of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat IV that dates to the 12th Dynasty. The latter game set is one of the best preserved examples and is today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He called it Hounds contra Jackals. Another, less often used modern name is fifty-eight holes. The gaming board has two sets of 29 holes. Gaming pieces are ten small sticks with either jackal or dog heads. The game appeared in Egypt, around 2000 BC and was mainly popular in the Middle Kingdom. In the 1956 movie The Ten Commandments, Pharaoh Seti (Cedric Hardwicke) and Nefretiri (Anne Baxter) are shown playing the game. Hounds and Jackals, also known as 58 Holes, is a well-known Bronze Age board game which was invented in Ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago. Hounds and Jackals appeared in Egypt, around 2000 BC and was mainly popular in the Middle Kingdom. William Mathew Flinders Petrie initially discovered the game and published about it in 1890. More than 40 examples of the game have been revealed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, Syria, Iran, Azerbaijan, around the Levant and Mediterranean since that time. Sticks were made of expensive materials such as ivory, silver and gold based on the findings at some of the archaeological sites. Wood was also used in the preparation of ordinary pegs, but such examples would not have survived. The complete set of this Egyptian game discovered in 1910 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter is now displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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