Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht for the Atari 8-bit family
2Came also out for:
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Game description:
The game can be played by 2, 3 or 4 players -- one player per board side.
Each player has 4 game pieces, which are in the "out" area when the game starts, and which must be brought into the player's "home" row. Early games had painted wooden pieces.
The rows are arranged in a cross position. They are surrounded and connected with a circle of fields, over which the game pieces move in clockwise direction. There are 3 fields nearest to each side of the board; the left one is the player's "start" field and the middle one leads to the "home" row.
This means that each game piece enters the circle at the "start" field, moves (clockwise) over the board and finally enters the "home" row. The first player with all of their pieces in their "home" row wins the game.
The players throw a die in turn and can advance any of their pieces in the game by the thrown number of dots on the dice.
Throwing a six means bringing a piece into the game (by placing one from the "out" area onto the "start" field) and throwing the dice again. In some variants, a player who has no pieces in the game has three tries to throw a six. If a piece is on the "start" field and there are still pieces in the "out" area, it must be moved as soon as possible. If a piece cannot be brought into the game then any other piece in the game must be moved by the thrown number, if that is possible.
Pieces can jump over other pieces, and throw out pieces from other players (into that player's "out" area) if they land on them. A player cannot throw out his own pieces though, and cannot advance further than the last field in the "home" row. A player cannot be thrown out if he is on his "start" field.
You can either play Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht with up to 3 human players, or up to 3 computer players.
What I think:
This is a really fun game, even if it is more based on luck than skills or thinking.
But as you can see: The more players there are, the longer the game takes.