Backgammon

Overview

Backgammon is a traditional two-player abstract board game and the most common interpretation of a long-running class of board games known as "tables games" (or "tables"). Despite the term being invented in the 17th century, it is commonly used to refer to most forms of tables games, which date back nearly 5,000 years ago.

Although not a prominent as chess, shogi, and go, the modern form of backgammon has received numerous video game adaptations, usually as part of board game collections.

Rules

The basic form of backgammon, as well as most of its variations, share a similar structure and rules. Both players sit at opposite sides of a 24-point backgammon board (or "tables board"), and try to be the first to move all 15 of their pieces to their destination through both luck (with random rolls from a pair of standard six-sided dice) and skill (as players choose which dice roll corresponds to which piece to move).

Unlike most board games, backgammon has both players moving their pieces in opposite directions on the same track, in the shape of a horseshoe. Modern backgammon follow a specific starting position of all pieces, while some variations start each player's piece on the opposite side (sometimes putting all 15 pieces on the farthest point).

A player's piece can land on the same point as one occupied by a single opposing piece, which knocks that opposing piece to the penalty "bar". The opposing player is then forced to bring that piece back to the furthest part of their track. Players can stack pieces on the same point, which also blocks off that point from the opposing player. This can cause the opposing player to forego their dice roll if they cannot move onto that space.

A common rule in backgammon games is the "bearing off" rule, where once the player moves all of their pieces to the home board, they must then clear each piece from the board through dice rolls.

Modern Rules

It is believed that backgammon is a direct successor to the 16th century game Irish, and includes some new additions:

• The "doubling" rule, which allow players to play each die twice if both of them have the same result. As an example, rolling two sixes allow the player to move 24 points total.

• Games are now scored for multi-round play, with players earning a point for winning the round, an additional "gammon" point if they win before the opponent clears any pieces, and a third "backgammon" point if they win while the opponent still has pieces either on the "bar" or on the player's home board. Later versions of the game added a special "doubling cube" to hasten play, which allows players to double the stakes on their turn (forcing the opponent to either accept it or resign that round at the cube's current value).

Other Tables Games

Although there are several predecessors to modern backgammon, only one received a few video game adaptations.

Board Sugoroku

The ancient Japanese version, known then as sugoroku ("pair of sixes"), is believed to have been brought there from China in the 6th or 7th century as a variant of the game shuānglù. It is now commonly referred to as ban-sugoroku ("board sugoroku") to differentiate it from the modern type of sugoroku (e-sugoroku, or "picture sugoroku").

As with most other backgammon-style games, most of the game's rules are similar to the earlier version of backgammon. However, there is no "bearing off" rule, with the player winning when all of their pieces are in their home board.

Alongside shogi and go, it was one of the staple board games of ancient Japan despite receiving multiple bans (as it was a common form of gambling). Interest in it later declined through the 19th century, with it being replaced by traditional backgammon in the 20th century. As such, there are only two known video game adaptations of it, both of which are mini-games:

• The 1994 point-and-click adventure computer game Cosmology of Kyoto. The encounter on which this game is playable is based on the ancient folktale of Hase Ozōshi, in which a sugoroku expert is challenged to a game by a strange man (later revealed to be a demon) in the Suzakumon Gate.

• The 2004 survival-horror PS2 game Kuon, where it is unlockable by collecting the Sugoroku Pieces and Sugoroku Board at different points in the main game. Along with a traditional sugoroku, this game features a "simple" version where both players race to get all of their pieces from one side of the board to the other.