Describe a game

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Describe a game being played.

The game should belong to some unfamiliar culture. It might be played in an ancient civilisation or on another planet. Make it exotic, for example if it’s a card game then don’t use hearts and spades, queens and kings, but make up some other pattern of symbols.

Don’t mention the rules. Don’t mention what the players are thinking. Just describe what an observer who doesn’t know the game would see, and let whoever sequels your story invent rules that are consistent with your description if they want to. You may have a character who watches and tries to guess the rules, for example you could say: “Two of the pieces were taller than the others and decorated with gold. They must be important, I thought, perhaps like the king in Chess.”

This challenge is about description rather than plot. I’m interested in how well you convey that the game is not of modern-day Earth, and how well you convey hints as to what the rules might be while leaving the actual details a mystery.