Among the manifold disciplines of games and sports, board games have been at the peak of popularity ever since their invention in the ancient times. Many of the basic primeval civilizations of the world have well endorsed the culture of board games. At the beginning stage of this board game culture, they were also played on the streets. With the passing times, the nature of the game went through a havoc change; previously they were pure board games and now they are available on internet and also at the video games. A commonality among all the board games is that all they are based on giving pure thrill and fun. Although, winning and losing are integral parts of the every game, board games do not highlight this particular motivation and only fun remains the essence of majority of the board games.

Among those innumerous board games developed and played in different corners of the planet, sugoroku was originated from Japan. It is comparatively older when compared to those traditional board games of different civilizations like Egypt, Greece and many more. Sugoroku is a game of ultimate fun and patience. They are played with intense energy and every moment of the game is highly spirited by the moves of the gamers themselves. However, when we use the term sugoroku, there are two different interpretation of the term. Both of them have got inclination from the western games. Here two predominant games act as the main contributors of the origination of sugoroku. For example, backgammon is one of those two influences and the other one is similar with the western snakes and ladders. As far as the basic commonality concerned, backgammon is more similar when compared to the snakes and ladders. Even, the starting points for both of the games are similar.

Apart from the above mentioned similarities, there are also certain dissimilarities. First of all, unlike the backgammon, doubles are not given much priority in sugoroku. A player can play doubles but after the death of one roll, it continues to be counted as one. Besides, although backgammon has “bearing of”, sugoroku game lacks this particular feature. Here, the last six spaces are most important as the goal has to move all of one’s men. Also there is no double cube in this game. The players in this board game are devoid of the facility of forming a prime out of six contiguous points in order to obliterate one’s opponent.

The origination of sugoroku is quite interesting. It is believed to be grown from China where it was more popularly known as Shaung-Liu. After China, the game traveled into Japan in the sixth century. After its introduction in the country, it had to face several upheavals and also was announced as banned a couple of times. As it is mainly a luck based game, it was equalized with gambling and was prohibited thereby. However, later the game managed to struggle out of its old controversies and came out with the brand new Japanese version of the game.
May 27, 2008, 12:17 pm

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