Dhayam | Ludo | Offline | Thayam | Dayakattai

Dhayam is a Tamil ancient board game played mostly in the Tamil region of South India. The game belongs to the category of race game where players race to move all their pawns to the final destination. The game is played by 2 to 4 players and requires special 4-sided dice. The game can also be played using 4 to 6 pawns. This App version uses two 4-sided dice for the gameplay.

Dice:
The dice used in the Dhayam dice game are shaped like long cuboids and is called Dhayam. One side is blank and the remaining sides have 1, 2, and 3 pips respectively. The output value is the sum of the numbers rolled. The blank side is counted as 0. If both dice are blank, then the output value is 12. The possible output values can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 12.

Board:
The game board is a 7x7 grid of squares and the center square of each side of the grid is colored differently (Red, Green, Yellow, Blue). Each colored square is home for a player. The game can be played by 2 to 4 players. When the game is played by 2 players, they must take positions on opposite sides. Each player has 4 colored pawns and each pawn must travel through a fixed path and reach the center square of the grid.

Rules:
Pawns are moved according to the output value of the rolled dice pair. The possible values are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 12.

Initially, all pawns are placed outside the board. A pawn can enter the board at the player's home only if the rolled dice pair value is "1".

Once a pawn is in the play, it can only be moved by the number of squares equal to the rolled dice pair value.

If a player rolls 1, 5, 6, or 12, he gets another chance to roll irrespective of whether or not he is able to make a valid move.

Pawns in the play are moved anti-clockwise along the fixed path in outermost squares and then clockwise in all inner squares.

Players take turns in an anticlockwise manner.

If the player has made all valid moves and hasn't rolled 1, 5, 6, or 12, then his turn ends and the turn is passed to the next player.

If a player can make a move, he must do so.

One square can only have one pawn except for safe spots.

The player cannot move his pawn to a square which is already oppcupied by another of his own pawns.

If the player's pawn lands on a square occupied by the opponent's pawn, then the opponent's pawn is slashed out of the game. This is called cutting the opponent's pawn. Once an opponent's pawn is cut, it follows the same rules to get back to the player's home as explained earlier (by the roll of 1 or 5).

There are some safe spots where players can not cut his opponent's pawn. These safe places are marked with a cross (which also includes starting home positions of all players). There are 8 safe places on the board.

Safe spots can have more than one pawn and all players are allowed to move their pawns to the safe spot at any time.

The player must cut at least one pawn of any of his opponents to move from outer squares to inner squares otherwise he must keep circling around his pawns in the outer squares.

The player can enter inner squares from one square behind its home square (marked with an arrow for respective colors).

The destination for all pawns in the center square which is also marked with a cross.

The first player to move all pawns to the destination square wins(King of) the game.