SANTORINI VS SUGOROKU

Santorini is an abstract strategy board game for 2-4 players designed and released in 2004 by Gordon Hamilton and republished via Kickstarter in 2016 by Roxley Games. Inspired by the architecture of cliffside villages on Santorini Island in Greece, and primarily designed for two players, the game is played on a grid where each turn players build a town by placing building pieces up to three levels high. To win the game, players must move one of their two characters to the third level of the town. Each turn of play involves moving one of your two pieces around a 5-by-5 grid each turn and then placing a tile adjacent to the moved piece, building up that spot of the board. On subsequent turns, pieces may be moved onto one of these built-up tiles, but only one level up at a time. Pieces may also be moved down any number of levels. Players may also place a special dome tile on top of a three-level building, which prevents a player from moving onto that spot for the remainder of the game. The primary winning condition is to get one of your pieces onto the third level, though players may also win if their opponent is unable to make a move. The Roxley Games version of Santorini introduced a god powers variant, which gives each player a unique way to break the rules. After being directly released and sold by Hamilton in 2004, Roxley Games ran a Kickstarter campaign during March-April 2016, drawing over 7,100 backers and raising over C$700,000, the most successful Kickstarter campaign ever based in Alberta. While the original release used plain white blocks as components, the Roxley version featured an enhanced cartoon-like look to the game, which Hamilton credits for success of the Kickstarter campaign. The game was released in retail outlets in January 2017.

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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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