If you play board games, chances are good that you've seen or played at least one game in the “Cross and Circle” family of board games (so called because they feature a track of spaces shaped like a circle or a cross that makes a circuit around the board). Americans will no doubt be familiar with the Hasbro game Sorry! or with the game Parcheesi. Our readers in the UK may be more familiar with Ludo (part of a proud tradition of naming your game “game”), and of course our Indian readers will be familiar with the older forms of Pachisi and Chaupar. What these games have in common is a similar board structure and win condition. The board always features some kind of track along which the pieces move, and a “home” base the pieces need to return to. Other common features include dice, the ability to knock an opponent's piece back to its players start by landing on them, a rule requiring an exact number to be rolled to either begin play, return home, or both, and safe spaces on the board, where pieces are immune to capture.
