Yut Nori

Yut Nori is the board game of the Korean New Year, and half the country plays it every February. Two sides race four pieces each round a square of twenty stations, and instead of a die you throw four wooden sticks, flat on one side and round on the other. The count of flat sides is your throw: one is do, two gae, three geol, four yut, and all four round is mo, worth five. Yut and mo earn another throw.

What makes it a game rather than a race is that nothing is decided by the throw alone. A turn is every throw you are owed, taken first, and then each of them spent on any piece you like in any order. A piece that ends a move on a corner takes the diagonal through the middle next time, which cuts the journey nearly in half. Landing on your own piece stacks them into one that moves together; landing on the other side sends it back to the start and earns you a throw.

You play the computer at one of three strengths, or open a table and send the code to a friend. The sticks are shown as they fall, the throws you have to spend sit in a row as buttons, and the pieces you may move are ringed, with a marker on the station each would reach. The rules here are the ones every Korean board is drawn for, without the back-do stick some sets add. Your difficulty and record stay in this browser.