Chapter 2: How to Play

“So, this is Ghost’s Sugoroku.”
Yuta explained it to Mihiro, his childhood friend he had invited to his room.
On the kotatsu being used as a table were drinks and Ghost’s Sugoroku.
It was still unopened, and Mihiro was reading the sheet explaining its origin that had been included with it.

“Huh. So a father made it by hand for his sickly daughter.”
She murmured admiringly and reached for the rule sheet.

“Even though it was handmade, somehow I was drawn in. I guess you could call it love at first sight.”
Yuta said, sounding a little amused.

“You can play with a ghost, it says. Why not flirt with a love-at-first-sight ghost?”
Mihiro replied while reading through the rules.

“I fell in love at first sight with the craftsmanship of the pieces.”
Yuta continued with a small laugh.
“It’s set up so it can be played alone, but since strategy is involved, wouldn’t it be better if we split into the human and the ghost and play as two?”
Yuta spread out the game and began preparing it.

“I might take the ghost role.”
When Mihiro murmured this, Yuta replied, “No, I’ll be the ghost. I want to use the long-haired piece.”

“I want that side too. The difference in appearance is huge.”
She picked up the two kokeshi and studied them carefully

“I’ll switch on the second turn,” Yuta said with a smile, taking the paper from Mihiro and continuing the preparations while reading it carefully.
“It says the human places the short-haired kokeshi, and the ghost places the long-haired kokeshi on their respective start spaces.”

“The places where the color changes, right?”
Mihiro placed the two kokeshi on the start spaces.

“And three stuffed animals each. The human uses the calico cat, and the ghost uses the white cat.”
“Calico? This is patchwork. Still, the difference in appearance is pretty extreme.”
Mihiro laughed and sorted the stuffed animals.

“Judging from the origin note, it seems it was made for his daughter, so he probably made the daughter’s piece look cute.”
“But the one using it is the ghost, right?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah. The terms are all mixed together, so I can’t tell what’s correct.
…Well, whatever.
Anyway, the human rolls both dice. The larger die is the human’s roll, and the smaller die is the ghost’s. It says the one with the higher number acts first.”

“This larger die is clearly lopsided, isn’t it? The chance of rolling a 6 goes down, so the human side is at a bit of a disadvantage.”
Mihiro laughed as she rolled the die in her palm.

“Maybe it’s a die for letting the other side win. The victory condition is to complete a lap first, or to catch up to the opponent. It also says you win if you take three of the opponent’s stuffed animals.”

“There’s no need to go easy on Yuta, though.
So how do we use the stuffed animals?”
She lightly lifted the patchwork stuffed animal.
Perhaps to make it easier to place on the board, a wooden base was attached.

You move forward by the number you roll, but you can use 1 from the roll to place a stuffed animal on an empty space behind your own piece or before or after a stuffed animal already on the board. It acts as a blocker—if it blocks the opponent, it returns to your hand, but if the opponent lands on it with the exact number, they take it.
You can retrieve a stuffed animal on the board by using 2.
It says the order is retrieval, placement, then movement.

“If you can adjust by up to -3, then roughly speaking it’ll get taken about half the time.
Still, it’d be a disadvantage if you don’t place at least one to adjust the roll…”
With her gamer’s mindset, Mihiro muttered to herself as she worked out a strategy.

“That’s all the rules. Think we can manage?”
Yuta put the instruction sheet away and turned to Mihiro.

“Thirty-two spaces for a lap, huh. I’ll win in 6 turns, so don’t cry.”
As Mihiro spoke with a mischievous grin, Yuta laughed and replied, “Don’t count on the shortest path.”