The children will love this one! (Sorry !)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Sorry !
Date:	04/02/01 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to learn, set up and play.

Disadvantages: None

I had a board game called Sorry when I was a youngster and I had always loved playing it. I told my partner about it and he has bought me a new one, as I’m still a big kid at heart, and I still love it!

It's based on ludo, with the aim being to get your four men all the way round the board and back home first. The game is played by up to four people and the playing pieces are in four different colours, each with a start and a home on one side of the playing board.

The difference is that you use cards to see how many spaces you move, rather than dice. The cards give a wider variety of moves than the traditional dice. They have various numbers and instructions on them such as forward 6 or back 4 and this is the move that you have to make with any one of your pieces.

A forward 1 or forward 2 allows you to start a man from home on his journey around the board and forward 2 also gives you an extra go. Split 7 is another interesting move as you can split the number of spaces moved between more than one playing piece.

The turning into the safe zone, where you can’t be knocked off, for the final few spaces to home is just 2 spaces short of the start for each opponent. (So you don’t quite complete a full circuit of the board) If you happen to draw forward 2 and get a man out and follow it by drawing back 4 you’re nearly home!

So you see, this has a little more strategy to it than ludo. There are 8 ‘slides’ around the board. If you land on one end, you slide to the other, logically enough, but, if there are any pieces on the slide, they are knocked off and put back to the start. Get a split 7 when you’re in the right position and you could send you’re men down slides knocking off pieces left, right and centre!

A bit more about the slides – there are two on each side of the playing board in the same colour as the playing pieces on that side. One of the slides sta
rts just before you enter the safe zone for the run to home and ends at the starting point for that colour. You do not slide down your own coloured slide so, if you land on the end you don’t have to slide down it and start again. BUT if you’re on that slide about to make the run for home and an opponent lands on the end – oh dear, almost home, and back to the start you go!

It's an easy game so the children can play, but it's ruthless enough to appeal to the adults as well. The children love being able to send the adults’ men back to home if they land on the slides, especially if the adult happens to have got his man nearly home!

By the way - thanks for the picture of the playing board at the top of this category - I was wondering if my descriptions would be adequate to give a mental picture!

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