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Mongolian traditional games can be divided into two general types on the basis of their general form; games which are played using simple and readily-available materials such as stones, sticks, or animal bones, and games which are played using objects created by the artistic means; namely with painted or carved pieces.The games of category one are characterized by a close figurative connection with nature and the herding lifestyle, often having a ritual of symbolic element to their playing and by a relative simplicity of their rules of play.The games of the latter category- which include cards, chess, dominoes and interlocking puzzles are symbolically associated with social and artistic activities and are usually more sophisticated requiring greater intellectual skill in their playing.

The most unique Mongolian game is Shagai, or anklebones, which are as name suggests, is played using the cleaned and polished anklebones of sheep. Each of the four sides of anklebone represents a different animals-horse, sheep, camel, and goat-and although there are many games which can be played with bones, in general the objective is to collect the most anklebones by throwing or flicking the bones, with different consequences if they land on each of the four sides. In additional to being a ready pastime for herding families, shagai has an important symbolic significance. A large family with many animals will, over time, have the occasion to collect very large number of anklebones, as a consequence of which the possession of a large number of anklebones has come to be considered a symbol of prosperity. In earlier times, families which managed to collect more anklebones than they needed would select an auspicious day to go to play the game of "multicoloured turtle" on the top of a mountain, leaving the bones afterwards as an offering to mountain or to sky.