DALDØS VS SUGOROKU

Daldøs is a running-fight board game only known from a few coastal locations in southern Scandinavia, where its history can be traced back to around 1800. The game is notable for its unusual four-sided dice (stick or long dice). In Denmark it is known as daldøs in Northern and Western Jutland (Mors, Thisted and Fanø), and possibly as daldos on Bornholm. In Norway it is known under the name of daldøsa from Jæren, where, unlike in Denmark, a continuous tradition of the daldøs game exists. Daldøs has much in common with some games in the sáhkku family of Sámi board games. Sáhkku is known to have been played among Sámi on the northern coast and eastern-central inland of Sápmi, far away from Jæren and Denmark. Otherwise, the closest relatives of this game appear to be the tâb games from Northern Africa and South-western Asia, possibly apart from one unlabelled diagram in a codex from Southern England. The board is boat-shaped and has three parallel rows of holes, two of which (A and B) have 16 holes each, while the middle row has an extra hole in the prow of the ship. Each player has 16 spatula-shaped pieces with a bottom end fitting into the holes of the board. One player has pieces that are rather wide and thin; whereas the other player's pieces are more obelisk-shaped. At the beginning of the game, player A's pieces are placed in the holes of row A so that the spatulas are perpendicular to the row (un-dalled), and equivalently for player B. Later in the game, the pieces will be turned (fordallede, or dalled) so that the spatula is parallel to the rows. Two special dice are used. Each die is a four-sided long die with pyramidal or rounded ends, preventing the die from standing on end. They may be about 2 by 2 cm in cross section, and 4 cm long. The four sides are marked A (with the value 1, called dallen, i.e. the dal), II (2, probably called døs), III (3) and IIII (4). According to some sources, the dal is opposite to III.

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Sugoroku (雙六 or 双六) (literally 'double six') refers to two different forms of a Japanese board game: ban-sugoroku (盤双六, 'board-sugoroku') which is similar to western backgammon, and e-sugoroku (絵双六, 'picture-sugoroku') which is similar to western Snakes and Ladders. The game is thought to have been introduced from China (where it was known as Shuanglu) into Japan in the sixth century. It is known that in the centuries following the game's introduction into Japan it was made illegal several times, most prominently in 689 and 754. This is because the simple and luck-based nature of sugoroku made it an ideal gambling game. This version of sugoroku and records of playing for gambling continuously appeared until early Edo era. In early Edo-era, a new and quick gambling game called Chō-han (丁半) appeared and using sugoroku for gambling quickly dwindled. This variant of the backgammon family has died out in Japan and most other countries, with the Western style modern backgammon (with doubling-cube) having some avid players. A simpler e-sugoroku, with rules similar to snakes and ladders, appeared as early as late 13th century and was made popular due to the cheap and elaborate wooden block printing technology of the Edo period. Thousands of variations of boards were made with pictures and themes from religion, political, actors, and even adult material. In the Meiji and later periods, this variation of the game remained popular and was often included in child-oriented magazines. With ban-sugoroku being obsolete, today the word sugoroku almost always means e-sugoroku.

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