Alshy

Alshy is asyk atu, the knucklebone game of Kazakh and Uzbek courtyards, made for people who shot asyks as kids in the aul or the mahalla yard and still follow it at the World Nomad Games. Open the app and you are already in a sunny courtyard with a line of asyks on the kon. Toss an asyk to see who throws first. The landing side is called out every time: alshy, taike, buk or shik. Then pull back from the saka, watch the short arc, and let go. The bones scatter under real physics. Knock an asyk clear of the kon and it is yours, and you throw again. Miss and the saka goes to the other side. Your rivals have habits of their own. Aigerim aims carefully, Timur throws as hard as he can, and Ermek ata only ever plays bank shots off the courtyard wall, and wins on them. The tour covers 24 yards: an aul near Shymkent, a Tashkent mahalla, an Almaty courtyard, a Samarkand school yard, a Turkestan…