Parchís

Parchís is a Spanish

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a ...

of the Cross and Circle family. It is an adaptation of the Indian game

Pachisi Pachisi (, Hindustani: əˈtʃiːsiː is a cross and circle board game that originated in Ancient India. It is described in the ancient text ''Mahabharata'' under the name of "Pasha". It is played on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross. A ...

. Parchís was a very popular game in Spain at one point as well as in Europe and north Morocco - specifically Tangiers and Tetouan, and it is still popular especially among adults and seniors. Since it uses

dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing ...

, Parchís is not usually regarded as an

abstract strategy game Abstract strategy games admit a number of definitions which distinguish these from strategy games in general, mostly involving no or minimal narrative theme, outcomes determined only by player choice (with no randomness), and perfect information ...

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

. It does not depend entirely on luck either, since the four pawns under a player's command demand some sort of strategy. Parchís is license-free in Spain, so in stores it is just as easy to find as a

deck of cards A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...

, and is usually cheaper. Although the original game allows up to four players (that is, the board counts four colors: yellow, blue, red and green), six-player versions are not hard to find (adding orange and purple, in that order), and eigh