Yut Nori

After reading about so many games from around the world and across history, one of my favorites for spare time is the game of Yut, which is a Korean traditional game whose origins are lost in the sands of time.  Different researchers say it dates back to the 4th century AD, or the 12th, from one region or another, based on an earlier game, or not ... these are beyond the scope of my gamer's toolkit, and Wikipedia doesn't seem able to sort it out either.  The game was introduced to Westerners by Stewart Culin in 1895 in his book on Korean Games, which can be found in full at Google books.

There are some alternate names for the game, with Yut Nori appearing to be the most common, although it looks like yut nori means "yut game".  Other names include Nyout and Korean Yoot, and even Korean Ludo.  Cyningstan has a good page about it, and the Bead Game site has a page as well.  I'm sure I could find many more.

Even the meaning of the game seems to have been lost, or mixed in with newer variations.  I could find earnest Youtubers from Korea, or experts on Korean culture who describe it as: (A) the center represents the North Star and the spaces are constellations, or the spaces are the tenets of Confucianism; (B) and David McCord say it's a simple horse racing game; but possibly the oldest version involves livestock, since the names of the different die rolls translate to dog, cow, sheep, horse and pig.

Video (A) above shows a fascinating cross section of the game being played by families on holidays, older men in the streets at an outdoor market, and an ancient painting of workers taking a break to play.  One group has about a twenty foot carpet to throw the sticks along.  I was surprised at the energy level of some of the players.  As (A) said, "it's just a simple game, right?"  But no, it can be part of ceremonies, symbolizing wishes for peace or good harvests, and has been used to cast divinations.

Or it's just a game.

The boards can be round or square.  They can be printed on paper, drawn on leather, or sketched in chalk, or even just makeshift pits made in the sand.  I would not be surprised if some were treasured family heirlooms.  Oca Studios has a very well designed copyright-free PDF you can use to print the game, even foldable game pieces.  A4 Games have an eye-popping printable version.

Instead of throwing dice, four specially decorated sticks are used which are flat on one side.  There may be symbols on one side only, or both sides.  The number of sticks landing flat-side up gives the number of spaces to move, with one (do = pig), two (ge = dog), three (geol = lamb), four (yut = cow) or five (all sticks face down = mo = horse), the logic being given by (A) as being sorted by how fast the different animals can run.  I like the bare bones description given by Steve Miller here.

If you roll a four or five, you get an extra roll.

The point is to get your four pieces around the board.  If you land on one of your own pieces, you can group it with those pieces and move them as a group.  If you land on an opponent's pieces, send them all back home and get an extra roll.  If you land on the corners by exact count, you can choose to take the shorter path home, but if you overshoot those key spaces, you have to continue the long way around.

Variations: on some sets of sticks, there are special symbols drawn on the backside which may match symbols on the corner spaces on the board, such as:

back do: go back one space, or if you have no pieces on the board, lose a turn

Seoul: bring a piece onto the board in the center space, if no pieces available to bring on, treat as a 1

Busan: bring a piece onto the board in the far corner space (in this version there would be a sun drawn there and on the stick), if no pieces available to bring on, treat as a 1

As for strategy, it's an interesting mix of simplicity and frustrating or funny outcomes.  There will be a lot of landing on other players on those first five spaces.  Sure, you can team up your pieces (what David McCord called the "herd rule") so they move as a group, but it's more of a setback when they all get sent home again.  I lost one game last night where I should have sent a pair of pieces home, but it would have sent me past the first turning point, the other player rolled a four and sent my guy home instead, while their pair got around the board easily.  I wouldn't say there can be any deep strategy to this basic setup, but there are occasional rolls which are real thinkers.

I have only seen a few apps for playing Yut, and they look more like hobby projects than commercial products.  Which is fine, as long as the logic is there.  The one we picked is by Jeffrey Chan (shown above), mostly because it has two player head-to-head mode, but it has not been updated since 2017.  It has cute penguins and seals, and the light-hearted simple graphics help ease the blow when your pieces get sent home.  You just can't be mad at those little guys.  It has the back do (-1) rule, and if you get extra rolls you roll them all first and then choose how to use them, which tends to lead to more options and more decisions.  You get coins for playing games and can spend them on about seven different avatars, which is cute but not big deal.  There are no rule variations.  We did find what looks like a glitch but is a hilarious one: you can get a -1 on the first space and move to the 0 space, after which any positive roll can get you to the finish line.  That should be a feature; it's a sneaky back-door way to score a piece.

Yut-Nori by Marco.Corvi has options for 1,2 or 3 back yuts, seoul, busan, back do, skip do, do spot, do cage -- I they're all explained in the Help menu.  Play online or vs computer.  This one has rules options but no graphical charm at all, just circles on a maroon background.

Yutnori by Wellflower: I don't even see a way to choose a piece or move it, or even what color I am supposed to be. 

Korean Ludo by Blue Cat Soft: this one has more bells and whistles, this time the default pieces are dog and mouse, and the sticks are pretty.  I have no idea why it shows a roll of 3 as "3 1", oh, it's how many threes you rolled, since I just had opponent throw two fives and it came up as "5 2".  On the freaky-weird side, I just saw an opponent roll with one stick going off the screen and it was counted as "Invalidity".  It looks like there is online play I am not interested in, but also one-vs-computer (up to 5 opponents) and the Local: Battle version is two player head-to-head like we enjoy playing.  The Team options are 2vs2, 3vs3 and 2vs2vs2.  The rules options are "nak all void" and "throw once more even if you catch an enemy with 4 or 5".  I can't say the AI makes any sense -- it looks like they always move their pieces on the board before entering new ones which is not at all how humans do it.

Overall, it's hard to tell what the core rules are and which rules are house rules or local variations, but it's a fun little spin around a board.