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Parcheesi is one of those rare games that can entertain both children and adults. Kids fall in love with it, and continue to enjoy it well into adulthood, making it one of the most popular games on the market for several generations.

 

Parcheesi, also known as Pachisi, is the National Game of India, where it originated in the 4^th century. The name comes from the Indian word for the number “twenty-five” – “pacis.” That number is the highest score that can be thrown on the dice in the game. In the mid-1800’s the game was introduced in the United States, and was copyrighted by James Hamilton. The game company Selchow and Righter bought the copyright from him, trademarked the game, and began selling it nationwide.

 

Parcheesi is played by four people. Each player gets a set of pawns in red, yellow, blue and green, and a pair of dice. Each player starts in their own corner of the game board. The first player to roll a five moves his pawns up and down a series of four rows on the board. The idea is to move all four pawns around the board counterclockwise and return to the center of the board. After a pawn returns “home”, the player received a bonus of ten spaces to use on another pawn. If he can’t use all ten spaces at once, he has to forfeit them.

 

Any other player can knock your pawn back to where it started by rolling a score that lands them in that space. If you knock another player’s pawn out, you can move twenty free additional spaces. Again, though, if you can’t move the twenty spaces at once, you have to surrender them. You can avoid getting your pawn sent home by landing in one of the “safe spaces” that appear every 5 to 7 spaces on the board, or you can form a blockade by putting two pawns in the same space. You can only do this if your two other pawns are free to move around.

 

Parcheesi gets more complicated the more pawns are on the board. Once a player has all four pawns in play, they can use the top and bottom of the dice score they roll if they roll a double. So, if you roll two fives, you can use the fives, plus the twos on the other side of the fives. You can split the value of the roll between two pawns any way you want as long as the total amount of spaces moved is equal to the doubled value of the score that was rolled. However, if a player rolls three in a row, they have to send the pawn that is closest to home back to it’s starting place.

 

It sounds complicated, but Parcheesi is still one of the most popular board games on the market, taking it’s place proudly in the stack of game boxes in family dens across the country.