Sorry! is a card-driven race game for 2-4 players based on the older cross-and-circle games Pachisi and Ludo. Each player has a set of pawns (4 per player in the current standard edition, 3 in classic editions). Instead of rolling dice, players draw cards that dictate how pawns move out of Start, around the board, and Home. Bumping opponents back to Start, sliding down Slides, switching pawns, and playing Sorry! cards make it a chaotic, swingy family race.

How to Play Sorry!

Components

• Game board with four colored Start areas, four Home areas, a shared outer track, four colored Safety Zones, and Slides.

• Pawns: 4 pawns per player in the current standard Hasbro edition (16 pawns total); 3 pawns per player in classic/retro editions.

• Deck of 45 cards: five 1s, plus four each of 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and Sorry!. (There are no 6s or 9s, to avoid confusing the two.)

Setup

1. Each player picks a color and places all of their pawns in the matching Start circle.

2. Shuffle the cards and place them face down to form the draw pile.

3. The youngest player goes first; play proceeds clockwise.

Turn structure

On your turn, draw the top card, follow its instructions if you can, then place it face up on the discard pile. (When the draw pile runs out, reshuffle the discard pile.)

Getting a pawn out of Start

You can move a pawn out of Start only when you draw a 1 or a 2 (placing it on the space just outside your Start). Other cards cannot release a pawn from Start.

What each card does

• 1 - Move a pawn out of Start, OR move a pawn forward 1 space.

• 2 - Move a pawn out of Start, OR move a pawn forward 2 spaces, AND draw again (take another card and play it).

• 3 - Move a pawn forward 3 spaces.

• 4 - Move a pawn backward 4 spaces.

• 5 - Move a pawn forward 5 spaces.

• 7 - Move one pawn forward 7 spaces, OR split the 7 between two of your pawns (e.g. 3 and 4).

• 8 - Move a pawn forward 8 spaces.

• 10 - Move a pawn forward 10 spaces, OR move a pawn backward 1 space.

• 11 - Move a pawn forward 11 spaces, OR switch places with one opposing pawn (you may decline the switch and is then forfeited if you cannot/choose not to move 11).

• 12 - Move a pawn forward 12 spaces.

• Sorry! - Take a pawn from your Start, place it on a space occupied by an opponent's pawn, and send that opponent's pawn back to its Start.

Bumping

If your move ends on a space occupied by an opponent's pawn, that pawn is sent back to its Start. You cannot land on or pass a move onto your own pawn (you cannot have two of your own pawns on the same space).

Slides

The board has colored Slides. If you land on the triangle at the start of a slide that is NOT your color, you slide to the end of it and bump every pawn along the slide (including your own) back to Start. If the slide is your own color, you do not slide.

Safety Zone and Home

• Each color has a 5-space Safety Zone leading to its Home; only that color may enter its own Safety Zone, and pawns in a Safety Zone cannot be bumped.

• A pawn may not enter the Safety Zone or Home by a backward move.

• A pawn must reach Home by exact count - if a card would overshoot Home, you cannot use it on that pawn.

If you cannot move

If you draw a card and cannot make any legal move with it, your turn is forfeited (discard the card and play passes on).

Winning

The first player to get all of their pawns Home (by exact count) wins the game immediately.

Winner-only. There is no score and no placement beyond first place; the winner is the first player to bring every pawn Home by exact count.

The pawns_per_player and player_count knobs are match params on this variant's ruleset; they change game length but not the win condition and are not separately scored. There is no score metric because Sorry! produces a winner-only race outcome.