CROSS AND CIRCLE GAME VS SÁHKKU

CROSS AND CIRCLE GAME

Cross and circle is a board game design used for race games played throughout the world. The basic design comprises a circle divided into four equa...

Cross and circle is a board game design used for race games played throughout the world. The basic design comprises a circle divided into four equal portions by a cross inscribed inside it like four spokes in a wheel; the classic example of this design is Yut. However, the term "cross and circle game" is also applied to boards that replace the circle with a square, and cruciform boards that collapse the circle onto the cross; all three types are topologically equivalent. Ludo and Parcheesi (both descendants of Pachisi) are examples of frequently played cruciform games. The category may also be expanded to include circular or square boards without a cross which are nevertheless quartered (Zohn Ahl), and boards that have more than four spokes (Aggravation, Trivial Pursuit). The game board for the Aztec game Patolli consists of a collapsed circle without an interior cross and thus has the distinction of being a cross that is a circle (topologically), without being a cross plus circle. Tokens are moved around spaces drawn on the circle and on the cross, with the goal of being the first player to move all tokens all the way around the board. Generally the circle of the cross and circle forms the primary circuit followed by the players' pieces. The function of the cross is more variable; for example, in Yut the cross forms shortcuts to the finish, whereas in Pachisi the four spokes are used as player-specific exits and entrances to the pieces' home. In non-race games (like Coppit and Trivial Pursuit) all paths may be undifferentiated in function.

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SÁHKKU

Sáhkku is a board game of the Sami people. The game is traditional among the North Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Inari Sámi and Lule Sámi but may also have been p...

Sáhkku is a board game of the Sami people. The game is traditional among the North Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Inari Sámi and Lule Sámi but may also have been played in other parts of Sápmi. Sáhkku is a running-fight game, which means that players move their pieces along a track with the goal of eliminating the other players' pieces. Many different variants of sáhkku have been played in different parts of Sápmi. The oral transfer of the sáhkku rules between generations was largely broken off during the 1900s (see Sáhkku today). A few of the local variants have survived into our time, other local variants have been reconstructed based on a combination of memories and written sources, and for some places only fragments of the local rules are known from old documents. A sáhkku board (sáhkkufiellu, bircunfiellu or sáhkkulávdi) can traditionally be designed in a number of different ways. At its simplest, a sáhkku board has three parallel rows of short lines, and the pieces are placed on these lines. The lines are called sárgat (one sárggis) in Sámi. It is common to draw the short lines as vertically connected to each other, so that the board appears to consist of just one row of very long lines, but the game is still played as if these were three separate rows of short lines. Such boards often also have three horizontal lines intersecting the vertical lines in order to illustrate that the lines are still in practice divided into three parallel rows. Some boards feature only a central horizontal line crossing the connected vertical lines, but the game is still played as if there were three rows of short lines. A special type of sáhkku board is the so-called Návuotna board which has three rows of squares (ruvttat, lanjat) instead of lines. The central line/square of the middle row, sometimes referred to as "the Castle", is indicated by a sáhkku-symbol ("X"), sun symbol, or other ornament.

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