Thayam(Dayakattai)

Sympkyn of the Moor

Number of players: 2-4

Type of game: Boardgame
Period:

History

Dayakattai is a board game played from ancient times in Tamilnadu which is situated in south India. It is played by 2 to 4 persons at a time. It is a game of making your fate to lead the life.

This game increases the decision-making power from childhood according to the situation.

The game board contains 7 X 7 square boxes. The center box of all four sides is crossed, it’s the home for each player.

In the next layer, four corners are crossed its the rest or a safe place.

The center of the box also crossed it is the end point.

This game uses two four-sided dice, with values 0 – 3

Goal

Each player has 6 coins move the coins from home to target as per the line given in the picture. The first player to get all six coins to the center is the winner.

Rules

  1. All pieces start off the board
  2. On your go roll the dice. Add the values together to determine how many spaces you can move. A roll of double 0 counts as 12
  3. On a roll of 1 you can enter a piece onto the board or move a piece. Otherwise, move a piece the number of spaces indicated by the roll.
    Aside from the safe squares, only one piece can occupy a space. If you land on an opponent’s piece it is sent back to the player’s starting pool.
  4. Pieces move anti-colockwise around the outer edge of the board.
  5. Until a player has taken an opponets piece they cannont move into the inner section of the board.
  6. In the inner section pieces move clockwise
  7. You can only move into the end space on an exact roll
  8. If your roll was a 1,5,6 or 12 you get to roll again, otherwise, it is the next player’s turn. Play continues to clockwise around the board

Moral of the game

In Tamil there is a proverb “vithiyai mathiyal vellalam”, means U can change ur fate by ur mind. Here the dice values are our fate and we manage to move all the coins to the destiny with my mind without losing the coins to others.