If you've played Ludo, Parcheesi, Sorry!, Trouble, or Wahoo, you've played a relative of Pachisi. This Indian race game has a family tree that stretches back more than 2,000 years, with boards, rules, and components changing as the game traveled.
Pachisi's descendants share a familiar idea: move pieces around a track, get them home, and hope the random result goes your way.
Pachisi began with 25 and six cowrie shells
Pachisi began in India. Its name comes from 25, the highest result possible when throwing six cowrie shells as dice. In Hindi, 25 is pronounced "pachis."
The first written mention appears in the Mahabharata, about 2,500 years ago, although Pachisi likely grew out of even older race games. This is only a short tour through that large family, not a complete history of Pachisi, Ludo, or every branch that followed. The Pachisi and Ludo game family has many connected versions and a few historical gaps.
Race games put luck and player choices on the same board
"Representational play" is a formal term for games where tokens or effigies stand for agents on the board and carry out a player's commands. Put more plainly, these are games with playing pieces.
Yet the outcome of a race game also depends on chance, or on fate, gods, and spirits expressing favor or mockery through a randomizer. Across history, players have thrown sticks, feathers, seeds, beans, shells, and knucklebones, Long four-sided dice and prism-shaped dice, Irregular polyhedral dice and familiar six-sided cubes.
If fortune provides the needed result, a piece advances toward victory. Players can also interpret and apply the “influence of the gods” as they choose.
One piece or a whole team
Some race games give each player one piece. Historical examples include Hyena, Mehen, and Totolospi, while modern examples include Formula D, Hare & Tortoise, Heat, and Jamaica.
Other games give each player a team of pieces. Korea's Yut Nori, Egypt's Dogs and Jackals, India's Dadoo, and Rome's Duodecim Scripta all fit this group. Games with teams of 12 or more pieces became part of the “Tables” branch of the family tree, which eventually led to backgammon.
Captures and blockades changed the race
In some games, landing on an opponent sends that piece back to its owner to begin again. Patolli, Liubo, and the Royal Game of Ur use versions of this idea.
Pieces can also work together. A common rule allows two pieces to form a blockade that other pieces can't pass. These features give players decisions beyond moving the furthest piece every turn.
How race tracks became crosses and circles
Linear races have a start line and a finish line. Sometimes these are the same line when pieces go “out and back” and sometimes the same line when the linear track goes in a shape that ends in the same place. Puluc and Tolaspi start and end at opposite ends, while the ancient Greek game Five Lines begins and ends at the sacred line that divides its board.
A race can be linear even when the track isn't physically straight. Yut Nori starts and finishes all pieces at the same point. In Ashtapada, each player has a separate start but races toward a shared goal. A circular track of spaces can become a square, then fold into a more compact cross-shaped layout.
When a track circles the outside and then branches toward a player's own finish in the center, it becomes a cross-and-circle game, even if the board itself looks square. Cross-shaped race games and cross-and-circle games are close relatives with shared DNA.
Different communities created their own branches with more or fewer spaces and arms, optional routes, and shortcuts. Boards may include safe spaces, dangerous spaces, Wahoo's central shortcut, Pollyanna's bridges, or the bonus slides in Sorry!. Cards and dice can add more effects.
Ludo, Parcheesi, and many modern relatives
Pachisi appears under many names. In the United Kingdom, the branch is usually called Ludo. In the United States, it is Parcheesi. Editions range from early 1880s boards to modern versions featuring familiar cartoon characters, with artwork ranging from silly to striking.
Traditional Indian games often use shells, seeds, or long four-sided dice. When the game was patented and published in Britain during the 1890s, publishers preferred six-sided dice. Sorry!, first made in 1935 by W. H. Story & Company in England and Parker Brothers in the United States, uses cards for movement and occasional penalties. Hasbro now publishes it.
Aggravation, Frustration, and Wahoo are popular relatives. Trouble brought its Pop-O-Matic dice mechanism to store shelves in 1965, and its dice-popping mechanism received a patent in 1967. Pegs and Jokers uses several standard poker decks, team play, and special movement options across connected board sections.
For more related games, including Ashtapada, Chauka Bara, Malefiz, Nai Oth, Pallanguzhi, and Viman Nam, browse the NewVenture Games game-history videos.
Ludo Express makes the trip shorter
Ludo Express is a compact, portable Pachisi descendant designed for a quick game. Each player has three pieces, and the board has only 21 spaces. A piece makes one lap from its starting corner to its own arrival row.
A roll of one starts a piece on its journey. Other results move pieces already on the track. Players must enter an empty arrival space with an exact roll or lose the turn if no move is possible. Landing on another player's piece sends it back to the start.
Blockades work a little differently here. Two consecutive pieces of the same color form a barrier that can't be passed. However, an opposing piece can still land on either space, send that piece home, and break the blockade.
The basic game uses one die. With two dice, players can make two moves, move one piece twice, or start one piece and move another. Another option lets a player choose one die result and leave the unused result for the next player to use instead of rolling. The Ludo Express game page includes the complete rules.
Pachisi keeps gaining new relatives
Pachisi connects ancient shell throws, cross-and-circle boards, card-driven movement, Pop-O-Matic dice, and portable modern games. Its descendants may look different, but they still carry the same basic race around the board. Ludo Express is one more branch of that long-running family, built for a full lap in only a few minutes.