Rules of Colombian Parqués

Goal

Bring your 4 tokens from jail (your base) to home (the centre of the board), moving anticlockwise. The first player to get all 4 tokens home wins.

The board

  • 68 squares around the track, 12 of them safe: the 4 start squares and 8 safe squares.
  • Each colour has its own 7-square home row leading to the centre.
  • On the default board: blue = water (tokens ride a boat), green = forest, yellow = earth, red = indoors.

Starting the game

  1. Each player rolls one die: the highest goes first (tie = roll again), then play goes around the table.
  2. To get out of jail you need a double (two matching dice). If all your tokens are in jail, you get 3 tries per turn.
  3. Double 1 or double 6: all your tokens come out. Other doubles: 2 tokens come out.
  4. Every double gives you another roll.
  5. 20 seconds per roll to throw the dice and move (the countdown shows during the last 10 seconds). After that, the game plays for you: it first brings your tokens out of jail, then captures opposing tokens if it can.
  6. Three doubles in a row: depending on the rule chosen by the host, the last token you moved goes straight home, or back to jail.

Moving

  • You can move one token by the sum of both dice, or split the dice between two tokens (e.g. 5 and 2: one token moves 7, or one moves 5 and another 2).
  • Capturing: if your token lands exactly on an opposing token outside a safe square, that token goes back to jail. When you leave jail, you also capture opposing tokens sitting on your start square (option).
  • On safe squares and start squares, nobody can be captured and several colours can share the square.
  • Huffing! If you could have captured and didn't, the other players can “huff” your token (it goes back to jail) until the next player rolls the dice.

Getting home

  • You need the exact count to get home.
  • Option: when you have only one token left and it is in its home row, you roll just one die.

More details: Wikipedia — Parqués. Graphics credits.