Do you know what sugoroku is? Have you heard about those board games where you roll a die to move across various spaces and reach the end? There isn't a specific name for this type of game, but some refer to the name of the first Western game invented called Snakes and Ladders.
In Japanese, this game is called Sugoroku [双六], in this article we will see some curiosities about this game in Japan and in the West. The word sugo-roku [双-六] literally means a pair [双] of six [六], probably referring to the 2 dice used to play (it can also be written 雙六).
The word can be used to refer to any traditional Japanese board game similar to the classic backgammon (ban-sugoroku).
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The story of Sugoroku
The first bansugoroku game is similar to backgammon, with few differences, such as invented rules or cutting rules each time we play something with someone different. The game is believed to have been introduced to China and brought to Japan in the 6th century. Like backgammon, the game was banned for becoming a game of chance.
Soon the gambling game called chouhan [丁半] appeared and killed the traditional ban-sugoroku. At the end of the 13th century, the traditional game of throwing dice and moving spaces on the board appeared in Japan under the name of esugoroku. Thousands of boards were made with different themes involving religion, politics and even adult things.
In the Meiji era and other subsequent periods, this style of play became so popular that it was frequently released in children's magazines. With the ban-sugoroku obsolete, the word sugoroku is almost always used to refer to board games that involve dice throwing and moving pieces.
Different boards in sugoroku
There are thousands of current games that have revolutionized the board game style of playing double dice to advance houses, among them are the famous real estate banking games like Monopoly or Game of Life.
Children in elementary school often create sugoroku boards with challenges in each house where the unlucky one who stops needs to do (episode 8 of asobi asobase). There are countless different ways to play, it can be with just one dice, it can be endless boards, there are no rules! You make up your rules!
In addition to the traditional board games of rolling and moving dice, even video games have used this luck scheme to create their own board games like Mario Party, Kiteretsu Daihyakka, and many Japanese spin-off games from different franchises that carry the name of sugoroku.
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