A voyage of discovery
Great value board games must be viewed with some suspicion. The prices were reasonable. The ‘Made in China’ label isn’t a bad thing. I’ve often seen marvelously finished games from the world’s factory. But I should have known better. There were 14 titles to choose from. All in identically-sized rectangular cartons. With fold-out play
boards inside, neatly packed in plastic sleeves. So, no look-before-you-buy opportunity! I bought eight of the games. ‘Road Sign Game’ was one of them. The carton proudly boasts ‘magnetic board’. And neatly printed, is ‘Item No.3850’! What was I thinking?
Two legends on the carton read: ‘Exquisite and easy-carry’, and ‘Instructions on how to use’. Full marks for convenience. The board is neat. When folded it becomes a neat box, which safely houses the two dice and play pieces. There are no instructions to be found. So from here on it’s a road trip of discovery, where with a little imagination and some luck, you might end up playing it the way the creators intended. In a less cynical mood, this might also be a fun way to explore a game — where one presumes it’s a race to the finish, with alternate rolls of the die, and danger sections on the track where you reverse direction, skip a turn, or worse!
After distractedly staring at the board and some unfamiliar road signs (at least in the Indian context), I decided the central ‘Travel Bingo’ tile is where players should begin and end their journey. Both die are to be rolled. The white dice indicates the number of places you move forward. The black dice indicates the number of places you back-track after completing the forward moves.
While throwing the die on the edges of the board the white and black die control moves to the left and right respectively. Landing on ‘stop’, ‘yield’, and ‘rest and recreation’ signs result in the loss of a turn. With snakes and ladders, ludo, aggravation and the like in our blood, inventiveness on a game board like this comes easy. I don’t think they planned it this way, but the discovery process turned out to be a pretty good adventure!
The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com
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