The ancient Indian race game behind Ludo, Sorry!, and Trouble. Race four pieces around a cross-shaped board from your home to the opposite side. Throw cowrie shells for movement, land on castle squares for safety, and capture opponent pieces to send them home. Direct ancestor of Ludo, Sorry!, and Trouble.
Every rule of Pachisi below is frontmatter in the rules corpus, played by the race plugin. The board beside each is the game itself, live.
Cowrie shell randomisation. Grace rolls on 0, 1, or 6 mouths up.
engine:
topology:
type: grid
rows: 19
cols: 19
players: [red, yellow, green, blue]
plugin: race
plugins:
pachisi:
routes:
south:
- [11, 9]
- [12, 9]
- [13, 9]
- [14, 9]
- [15, 9]
- [16, 9]
- [17, 9]
- [18, 9]
- [18, 10]
- [17, 10]
- [16, 10]
- [15, 10]
- [14, 10]
- [13, 10]
- [12, 10]
# …Pachisi (Standard)
Uses seven cowrie shells with named throw values. Higher potential scores than the standard six-shell form.
engine:
topology:
type: grid
rows: 19
cols: 19
players: [red, yellow, green, blue]
plugin: race
plugins:
pachisi:
throw:
lots: 7
scores:
0: 7
1: 10
5: 25
6: 35
7: 14
again: [7, 10, 25, 35, 14]
enterWith: [7, 10, 25, 35, 14]
routes:
south:
- [11, 9]
- [12, 9]
- [13, 9]
- [14, 9]
- [15, 9]
# …Seven-Shell Pachisi
Every Pachisi variant is playable against the AI or another player.