Before screens, children in the Emirates played on the sand.
They drew a court with a stick, found a flat stone, and hopped. They played until the call to prayer, or until someone's mother called them in.
Games of the Good Old Days keeps those games so they can be played again.
AL JAHEEF (القحيف)
Also called Al Hajla. Toss your stone into the numbered square, then hop the court on one foot — both feet only in the paired rows — turn at the stone, and carry it home without touching a single line.
• Twenty courts, each harder than the last
• Eight rounds to clear a court
• One player, or two sharing a phone
• A breeze that pushes your stone, and gets stronger as you go
• Dress your character from eighteen traditional garments
FULLY BILINGUAL
Every word in Arabic and English, right-to-left and left-to-right, switchable at any time.
SAFE FOR EVERYONE
No adverts. No tracking. No analytics. You can play every court and earn every badge without signing in or giving us anything at all — everything is saved on your own device.
Sign in only if you want your progress to survive a lost phone, or your name to appear in the champions table. Your player picture is a drawn character, not a photograph, unless you choose otherwise. You can delete your account from inside the app at any time.
MORE TO COME
Al Saqla, Al-Taila, Al-Ghummaidah, the old foot race, Al Mangala and others are on the shelf and on their way.
Play Al Jaheef and more traditional Emirati games — free, bilingual, no ads.