Board Game Arena

I've never seen a board like the 2 player before... is it an official size, or where did this board come from?

Neither did I. For cost reasons, real boards come with two sides for 4 and 6 players. This causes 2,3 or 5 player games to be either asymmetric (=unfair) or boring (too much space between players, and the way around the board is too long).

I think the BGA board comes in 5 variants from 2 to 6 players so that each player has a section with 18 positions, and not more. This is the fairest solution imaginable, and I appreciate the effort that Woodruff invested into this.

Robo

Hi,
Thanks for the compliment Robo Your assumption is true. Since we are not limited by material issues, I wanted to extend the possible number of players by giving each a section of 18.
This way, the game can be launched more often and fit the wishes of more players

But I personally prefer the 4 player version of the game with teams, which has deeper tactical value in my sense. 6 is fine too, but sometimes, it lasts long :/
Playing with two players is perfect to teach the game to newbies

Wood

Thanks for the replies.

I've come to really enjoy this game online and I want to play it with my family; however, it's hard to find board that match the ones here on BGA.

Like Robo65, I noticed as well that Woodruff perfectly executed the boards for different player numbers. I initially started playing just 2 player free-for-all, but found that this would be almost impossible to do on a physical board without making your own custom version.

After playing more, I agree with Woodruff that 2x2 teams is absolutely the way to go... it's so much more tense and exciting and has the additional strategical elements of switching cards and helping your teammate.

However, when I research physical boards, like the Rustik boards on Amazon, I see that they are a little different. They have 18 holes per player, but the start hole is immediately next to the home lane while here on BGA, there is an additional space in between the start hole and the home lane.

So, ultimately I'm wondering if there is any actual "official" board (if that matters). I'm debating buying a board and attempting to make my own. I think the Rustik boards are incredibly ugly and distracting, and prefer the simplicity of the BGA boards. Ludo/Sorry/Aggravation boards have fewer holes for each player, so I don't think they would work well.

Thoughts?

Well, there are some french references that you can find on Wikipedia, and Boardgamegeek shows some variants, too. Those Boards have 18 positions for each player, and the entrance to the home is 2 fields before the start field. There is also a picture of a "traditional tock board", looking VERY traditional and homely, with 14 extra holes around the start zone of each player. I don't know what they are for.

Funny thing is, the start field in those images is ONE position behind the home entry field, not two (you enter home from #17 and start on #18, not on #1). Maybe Woodruff got that wrong? But probably it doesn't matter, there seem to be lots of variants and house rules of Tock...

There are other variants of the same idea, like Dog orTAC, that use 16 positions per player and share the Start and Home Entry field, but a pawn or marble must have been moved before it can enter home.

Robo

My home IRL version of this game, the home entry field is THREE positions behind the starting fields...
One game, but many rules and variations.
(I chose 2 fields because it seems to be more common amongst all versions according to what I saw in the web)