The ouroboros king

If you make a purchase after following a link on our site, we may earn a small commission. Learn more. If you like the strategy of chess and the unpredictability of the roguelike genre, there’s a very good chance you’ll want to check The Ouroboros King out. It’s been available on PC since 2023, but it’s just released on PlayStation and Switch, giving a new legion of console players the chance to get hooked on its simple yet devious premise.The Ouroboros King isn’t a pure chess game. There are lots of elements of chess here, sure. Some of the pieces, and their movesets, will be familiar, and you’re playing on a classic black-and-white squared board. But it also throws in new pieces, with moves and abilities all of their own. You can’t rest on your laurels, then, and as you start to play The Ouroboros King there’ll be something of a learning curve as you familiarise yourself with its new pieces.You also won’t start a game with a full board of pieces. Just four will make up your army to begin with, and you’ll have the opportunity to gain more pieces as you progress. Taking a leaf from other roguelike games such as Slay the Spire, you’ll move along a map that sometimes offers branching paths, giving you the opportunity to gain different rewards.Image: Oriol Cosp GamesBefore starting your run of The Ouroboros King, you can choose the pieces you want to begin with, although of course, central to them all is your King. Just like a real game of chess, you need to protect your king at all costs while aiming to take down your opponents’. Needless to say, being an adept chess player is going to help you out a lot here. But if you’re not so familiar, not all is lost: highlighting each piece on the board will show you its possible movements.Related: Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate review – chess, but not as you know itOur only problem with The Ouroboros King is its controls. Starting life on PC, it’s clear it’s been designed to play

Joobin BekhradFeatures correspondentBiblioteca dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, RomeAs a new exhibition looks at the concept of the loop, Joobin Bekhrad discovers how one symbol had different meanings in ancient Egypt, Hindu mythology and Renaissance alchemy.It is perhaps fitting that the ancient ouroboros marks the beginning – and end – of Never Ending Stories, a major exhibition currently showing at Germany’s Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Spanning multiple mediums, time periods, and fields, the exhibition explores the concept of the loop on a hitherto unseen scale. “The loop is very telling for our times,” says curator Ralf Beil, “and the concept of the loop has never been presented in a larger consideration of time and space.” Organised into 14 thematic sections, Never Ending Stories looks at loops in not only religion and philosophy, but also modern and contemporary art, film, music and literature.LIMA, AmsterdamFor Breathing In Breathing Out (1977), Marina Abramović and Ulay blocked their nostrils with cigarette filters and pressed their mouths together (Credit: LIMA, Amsterdam)And the ouroboros is one of the most compelling, a symbol that has been the subject of awe and wonder for millennia. Literally meaning ‘tail-devourer’ in Greek, it has appeared in numerous forms in a wide array of contexts and geographies. In its original and most common variation, it depicts a snake eating its own tail in a closed circle. The ouroboros, however, isn’t Greek, and certainly isn’t a celebration of self-cannibalism. What, then, are its origins, and what does it signify?Here comes the sunThe oldest-known ouroboros appeared on a golden shrine in the tomb of Tutankhamen – ‘King Tut’ – in Egypt in the 13th Century BC, after a brief lull in traditional religion brought about by his predecessor, Akhenaten. According to leading Egyptologist Jan Assmann, the symbol “refers to the mystery of cyclical time, which flows back into itself”. The ancient Egyptians understood time as a series of repetitive cycles, instead of something linear and constantly evolving; and central to this idea was the flooding of the Nile and the journey of the sun.Zentralbibliothek ZürichAurora Consurgens, a 15th-Century alchemical manuscript, features the ouroboros, linked with the symbols of the sun, moon, and mercury (Credit: Zentralbibliothek Zürich)The flooding of the Nile in summer marked the beginning of the year, and served as a metaphor of cyclical time, flowing “back into itself like a circle … [enabling] renewal, repetition, and regeneration,” as Assmann says. Similarly, the sun was believed to be the source of cyclical time, undertaking a nightly journey to the waters of Nun (a sort of primordial void), fraught with all sorts of obstacles, whence it would find its way back to the sky. As such, the ouroboros in its original Egyptian context symbolised repetition, renewal, and the eternal cycle of time.Known as the oldest allegorical symbol in alchemy, the ouroboros represented the concept of eternity and endless returnLike the sun, the ouroboros underwent a journey of its own. From Egypt, it found its way to the Greek alchemists of Hellenistic Alexandria. In the Chrysopoeia (transmutation

With a mouse, and it’s suited to clicking-and-pointing. On console, you’ll be moving around a cursor with your left stick, square-by-square, which can easily get lost between your board and various other bits of information around your screen. It’s not a total dealbreaker, but it’s fiddlier than it should be. It really would benefit from a bit of extra work going into its control scheme: keep the cursor locked to the chess board, for example, and add a face button press to access information about your power-ups. A simple change, but it’d make a huge difference.Still, we’ve a soft spot for chess games, and seeing a new take on a classic is always a treat. The Ouroboros King successfully turns the traditional strategy game into a roguelike, making it moreishly tempting — and a lot of fun to play. Even if you’re not a chess master it’s worth your time, particularly considering its bargain price of just £7.99.The Ouroboros King is out now on PS4, Switch and PC. There’s a free demo available on Steam if you want to try it out before buying. Co-owner and editor-in-chiefKim's been into video games since playing Dizzy on her brother's Commodore 64 as a nipper. She'll give just about anything a go, but she's got a particular soft spot for indie adventures, roguelikes and puzzle games. If she's not gaming, she's building Lego or watching Friends reruns for the 96th time. You'll also find her work on That Brick Site and Space.com.

Into gold) of Cleopatra, the ouroboros appears slightly differently. A pictorial alchemical papyrus from the 3rd-Century AD, it dealt with the creation of gold, and the ouroboros appears among the mysterious symbols and images encircling the Greek words ‘One is All’.Known as the oldest allegorical symbol in alchemy, the ouroboros in this context represented the concept of eternity and endless return, as well as the unity of time’s beginning and end, rather than the Egypt-specific journeys of the sun and the Nile. Elsewhere on the papyrus, in a double ring, appears the complete maxim, of which ‘One is All’ is only a part: ‘One is All, and by it All, and for it All’, it reads, ‘and if it does not contain All, then All is Nothing’.Staatsbibliothek zu BerlinThe ouroboros appears in the classic alchemical study, Atalanta Fugiens (1617), by the physician to Emperor Rudolf II, Michael Maier (Credit: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)The ouroboros was also of significance to the Gnostics. From a Gnostic viewpoint, the opposing ends of the ouroboros were interpreted as the divine and earthly in man, which, despite being at odds with one another, existed in unison nonetheless. In this sense, it is comparable to the Chinese yin and yang, depicting the harmony of contrary forces, as well as the cosmic dichotomy of light and darkness in Manichaeism and the Zoroastrian philosophy of the farvahar, which first posited that each soul was composed of a pure, divine component, as well as a human one.The ouroboros also appears in other ancient traditions. In Norse mythology, the serpent Jörmungandr encircles the world with its tail in its mouth, while in Hinduism, the ouroboros forms part of the foundation upon which the Earth rests. In the more widespread Roman variant of Iranian Mithraism, Zurvan, symbolising ‘boundless time’, is depicted with an ouroboros entwined around his body, while the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl is often seen in the form of an ouroboros.AlamyThe ouroboros is part of Hindu iconography, as in this drawing of a tortoise supporting elephants upon which the Earth rests, enclosed by the serpent, Asootee (Credit: Alamy)As if this weren’t enough, the ouroboros went on to enjoy much popularity among Renaissance alchemists. Again representing the infinite nature of time and the eternal, it was seen in the eyes of the alchemists as the ultimate obstacle to be overcome in the Magnum Opus, their incessant struggle; for to become immortal – their chief aim – meant to break the incessant cycle of the ouroboros once and for all. That they would also come to possess, through their experiments, the prized ‘philosopher’s stone’ that would bring them all the bling in the world, was mere icing on the cake.Around and aroundNever Ending Stories begins and ends with the ouroboros because it is a symbol that has resonated throughout so many different eras. “Its fascination derives from the archaic preciseness of the image,” explains Beil, “instantly understandable by every culture, and thus used by a majority of them for two-thousand years”. The exhibition

The Ouroboros King combines the strategic depth of chess with the build variety and replayability of roguelikes. Assemble a formidable army, discover powerful relics, and buy surprising gadgets to defeat the Coven. Core Gameplay• Build the Ultimate Army: Combine classic and new fairy chess pieces, relics that give them bonuses, and consumable items that grant you temporary advantages to create a formidable army.• Perfect Your Strategy: You can only move one piece per turn, so you must choose carefully. Make your troops work together to obliterate the enemy army.• Another Chance: If you're defeated you can go back to action on another timeline, where the path to victory will change: different map, different enemies, different rewards... in true roguelike spirit. Other Features• Lots of end-game options to dial up the difficulty to insane levels.• Same-device multiplayer, challenge your friends to chess games with lots of unique pieces.• Chess-based tactics, easy to learn and hard to master.• 15-45 minute runs, good for a short break and also longer sessions.• No gatekeeping, all the content is unlocked from the start. Win or die based on your skills.• No need to learn any chess openings or study anything.

Hunter B-15's doctor backstory explains a lot about the character Marvel Studios/Disney+ Hunter B-15 goes through quite an arc over the first two seasons of "Loki." She starts out as a capable and professional TVA Hunter, but when presented with new information, she's quick to absorb it and adjusts accordingly. When she finds out that everyone in the TVA is a time-displaced variant, she shifts gears entirely and starts protecting timeline branches instead of culling them. In other words, she may seem like a cop or a soldier, but her mindset seems to be that of a scientist, and she does only what she genuinely believes is for the best. This character trait receives a perfect explanation in "Science/Fiction" when Loki finds out that B-15's true identity is Dr. Willis, a pediatrician who seems to be very good with her young patients. The fact that the character turns out to be a doctor fits perfectly with her professionalism about keeping the Sacred Timeline healthy — as well as her utter distress and instant allegiance shift after she finds out the TVA's true nature. After all, even if she doesn't remember taking her Hippocratic oath, destroying entire timelines must strike a nerve for someone with a medical professional's mindset. Ouroboros' true identity may have a surprising Guardians of the Galaxy connection Marvel Studios/Disney+ Of all the people Loki meets in their original lives, Ouroboros is the most unchanged. A scientist who aspires to be a sci-fi writer, he's essentially the same guy as he is in the TVA ... only, his civilian version is known as Dr. A.D. Doug. He's extremely quick to believe Loki's story about the TVA and time-hopping and even implies that he's written about similar things in his unsuccessful novel. When Loki creates a bit of a paradox by giving Dr. Doug a copy of his Ouroboros self's TVA Guidebook, Doug immediately starts building a TemPad, and even his lab space has a very TVA-style aesthetic. The big twist to his original life, however, lies elsewhere. Ouroboros' real name may or may not be a play on