World Heritage GamesAnatlasofplay

Home / Living Traditions / Southeast Asia and the Islands

Playable heritage game

Songket

Also known as supplementary-weft gold weaving

Songket is a hand-woven cloth of the Malay world in which gold and silver threads are laid in between the ground threads on a loom, so that glittering shoots, flowers and stars rise row by row from a dark silk or cotton ground. The same motif is often turned around so the two ends of a long cloth answer each other.

Play the previewAbout this tradition
Songket: photograph by Chris Hazzard
Photo: Chris Hazzard, CC BY-SA 3.0, source on Wikimedia Commons
Songket: the game in attract modeLive previewPlay

Runs in your browser, works offline once loaded.

How to play

  1. Pick a thread colour and a woven shape from the tray under the cloth.
  2. Tap a square to weave it: the same shape appears on the square turned half way round the cloth.
  3. Copy the small cloth shown above, then press Check.
Rules at a glance
  • The cloth is turned half way round on itself, as a long cloth with matching ends is.
  • A square counts only when its woven shape and its thread colour both match the target.
  • Three stars need a nearly perfect copy; you can undo or clear as often as you like.

About the tradition

Songket is woven in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, notably in Terengganu, Kelantan, Palembang, the Minangkabau highlands, Bali and Lombok. Weavers learn within the family, and many motif names recall plants, such as the young bamboo shoot, the flower and the leaf.

Origins

A living tradition passed from person to person; it is not tied to a single dated origin. It belongs to the cultural world of Southeast Asia and the Islands.

Credits

Sources

Get the app

Songket is one of 17 textile crafts in the Textile Crafts of the World app for iPhone, iPad and Android. Submitted to the App Store and Google Play; in review. Store links appear here the day it goes live. One app, many traditions, no account needed.

See all 17 textile crafts in the app

In review on theApp StoreIn review on theGoogle Play

More games to play

More from Malaysia

All 22 traditions from Malaysia See them on the map