When we say, “It’s just a game,” what we mean is that there are no consequences [ . . . ] How far this seems from the truth of play, the pull of Thanatos expressed, for example, in the phrase “roll them bones.” Or the underworld gravity of senet, one of the earliest recorded board games, often placed as a funerary talisman in ancient Egyptian tombs. Senet was not only about death but intended for the dead, who played against invisible opponents for the stake of their souls. Winning conferred a chance for eternal life in Aaru, the heavenly reed fields; the punishment for losing was oblivion.
