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The Korean New Year race game. Throw four sticks, run four pieces around a 29-station board, stop on a corner to cut across the diagonals, stack your pieces, catch the rival's to send them home, and get all four out first. Beat the computer again and again to build a streak.
Tap Throw to toss the four sticks; a Yut or a Mo lets you throw again, and every result waits as a chip until you spend it. Then tap one of your glowing red discs (or your waiting pieces below the board) and tap a numbered ring to move there — two rings appear when a piece sits on a corner and may take either way. Get all four discs out past Start before the rival's blue diamonds.
The four sticks are flat on one side and round on the other, and each lands either way half the time. One flat side up is Do (1 station), two is Gae (2), three is Geol (3), four is Yut (4) and none at all is Mo (5). One stick carries a mark on its flat side: when it is the only flat side up, the throw is Back-do and a piece steps back one station. Gae comes up 6 times in 16, Geol 4, Do 3, and Back-do, Yut and Mo once each. Yut and Mo throw again, so a turn can bank several results; spend them in any order, each on one piece or stack.
Pieces enter at the station after Start and run up the right side, left along the top, down the left side and back along the bottom — 21 steps to get out the long way. A piece that ends a move on the top-right or top-left corner may cut across that diagonal on its next move, and a piece that stops on the centre turns straight for Start. Going over the centre without stopping carries on in a straight line. The shortest route, a Mo straight onto the top-right corner and then down through the centre, takes 12 steps.
End a move on your own piece and the two stack: from then on they move together with one result. End a move on the rival's piece or stack and every piece there goes back to wait at the start, and you get one more throw. A piece leaves only by going past Start; landing exactly on Start keeps it on the board, where any forward result takes it out next. Back-do from the first station drops a piece onto Start. A Back-do with none of your pieces on the board is lost.
Win a game to add one to your streak; the rival climbs a level each win, four levels in all, and plays at the top level from your fourth game on. The first throw alternates between games. A loss ends the run, and so would a draw, which only happens if one game reaches 400 turns. Your saved score is wins × 10,000 plus your margin: the steps the rival still needed in the games you won (a waiting piece counts 12), up to 9,999 in total.
The top-right corner is the most valuable station on the board. From there the diagonal through the centre gets a piece out in 7 more steps, against 16 the long way round, and a Mo from the start drops a waiting piece straight onto it. When a piece sits one to four stations short of that corner, look for the result that stops it exactly there — with several results in the pool, the order you spend them in decides whether a piece lands on a corner or sails past it. The top-left corner is worth stopping on too: 7 steps out via its diagonal instead of 11 along the ring.
Read the danger by distance. A piece two stations in front of a rival piece is the one most likely to be caught, because Gae comes up 6 times in 16; three stations is 4 in 16, one station 3 in 16, and four or five only 1 in 16 each. Extra throws from Yut and Mo add a little to every distance, and a piece right behind a rival piece can even be hit by its Back-do. Pieces waiting at the start count as attackers too: a piece of yours on the first five stations can be hit by a new rival piece entering the board.
Stacking is a gamble with doubled stakes. Two pieces riding together move twice as far for every result, which is why a stack near the end of the course is often the fastest way to finish, but one unlucky throw sends both back to the start. Stack when the rival has nothing within a few stations behind you, or when the stack is about to cut across a diagonal, and split the risk when the rival is lurking. Catching is the strongest move in the game because it costs the rival all of that piece's progress and hands you another throw — a rival stack two or three stations ahead is usually worth chasing.
Yut Nori is played by Korean families at Lunar New Year, often in teams, with the sticks tossed high onto a mat. The five results are traditionally linked to animals — Do the pig, Gae the dog, Geol the sheep, Yut the cow and Mo the horse — roughly in the order of how fast each one runs. Many households play with house rules for Back-do or for leaving the board; this version always lets a piece leave by going past Start and turns a Back-do from the first station into a step onto Start, a well-known trick for getting a piece home quickly.