Puluc

Another ancient board game, Puluc (also known as Bul or Boolik) is from Mesoamerica.  There are interesting debates about its exact origin, and whether or not it predates the Spanish conquest of the region.  It is a simple game, just a track with nine spaces, but it is a relaxing little challenge that does get tactical at times.

The best sources for information are the usual suspects: BoardGameGeek, Cyningstan, a4games and an overview from Wikipedia.

The basic board looks like this (my quick version):

But, in keeping with the endless creativity of game board makers, there are versions with 10 spaces, up to 25 have been reported, and the Wikipedia image shows a board designed in a circular pattern.

The basic rules are:

1. Setup 5 red pieces in the red zone ("city"), and 5 blue pieces in the blue zone.

2. Each turn, throw the 4 two-sided casting sticks to see how many spaces you can move.  If no sticks land face-up, that counts as 5 spaces.

3. move any one piece the number of spaces indicated.

4. you cannot land on a space with a friendly piece on it.

5. if you land on a space with an opponent piece on it, you capture that piece by putting your piece on top.

6. each stack of pieces moves as a single unit, so captured pieces remain beneath their captor piece

7. if you land on an opponent piece which has captured pieces beneath, free those friendly pieces and send them home, but keep the opponent piece as a captured piece

8. once you have captured pieces, continue forward until you reach (or move past) the opponent city, at which point you score the enemy pieces and send your pieces back home.

9. first player to score all enemy pieces is the winner.

It is a fairly simple game, running about 20 to 30 moves on average.  You can easily lengthen the game by adding more spaces or more stones.

The odds of certain rolls coming up are: one or three (1/4), two (3/8), four or five (1/16).  You quickly learn to avoid parking your pieces two spaces from an opponent, but in the end it is the luck of the dice.

For most of the game, it is a matter of captures and recaptures, and some shots where you get a space away from scoring some pieces only to get captured at the threshold and sent packing.  Late in the game, when each side had only one or two pieces left, it can turn into a kind of jousting game, where the pieces run at each other, miss, and have to come back around and try again.

Major variant: 8.1. after capturing pieces, immediately return to YOUR city to score them.  After running some test games, I initially preferred this version because it is more logical: run out, grab the pieces and bring them home.  But eventually, I came to like the original rule 8 better: it can be a nail-biter bringing the captured pieces right up to the enemy's doorstep and saying "look what I got!"

One theme of my blog articles will always be a celebration of the design and creativity of game makers, whether they are professional leatherworkers or carpenters, or just traditional designs from small towns, or boards that parents made for their kids decades ago.  Here is one of many available videos, this one picked for its interesting board - it is in Spanish, because language is no barrier and it is, after all, a game from Central America.

And here is one showing how to win Puluc at a virtual table inside the Bannerlord modern video game:

For amazing craftsmanship, I would have to pick this one.  If that particular Etsy listing is gone, just check out Ignited Arts for a whole range of gorgeous game boards.

After trying a few apps, the Android app I have on my tablet is here.