Sugoroku

Setup

• Sugoroku (picture-sugoroku, the roll-around kind) is a dice race enjoyed in Japan since the Edo period: move along a single winding path of squares.
• 2 to 6 players. On your own, play against three computer players.
• Everyone starts a piece at square 0. Choose one of three boards: Round the Seasons, A Short Walk, or Treasure Hunt.
• Each piece carries its owner's mark (a shape), so pieces sharing a square can be told apart. Pieces never collide and are never captured.

How to play

• Take turns rolling one die and move your piece forward that many squares.
• Follow any instruction on the square you land on: move forward or back (never before square 0), rest one or two turns, roll again (up to three times in a turn), go back to start, or jump to a numbered square — six kinds in all.
• By default you also follow the instruction on the square an instruction sends you to (up to 5 in a row; it always stops even around a loop). Turn the local rule chaining off to make each instruction trigger only once.
• A resting player is automatically skipped when their turn comes around, with their remaining rests counted down by one each time. Even if everyone is resting, the count keeps falling, so someone always ends up rolling.
• You can roll again up to three times in one turn. A fourth roll-again is cut off automatically and play passes to the next player.

Winning

• By default, reaching or passing the goal square wins outright. A local rule, exact, requires an exact roll instead, bouncing back by the extra amount.
• By default, play ends as soon as one player reaches the goal; the rest are ranked by how far they travelled. A local rule, play on for places, keeps going until only one player is left.
• You can also resign. A player who resigns is ranked last (tied), and play continues if two or more players remain.

House rules