Tobi-Sugoroku

User summary Tobi-Sugoroku is a traditional Japanese game developed from the original game Joudo-Sugoroku. Tobi means 'Jumping', and as in Joudo-Sugoroku, players move differently across the board using dice rolls and following the instructions on the squares. As with other classical Japanese games, the original designers' and illustrators are not known.

However, later Tobi-Sugoroku do not keep the Buddhist theme, and instead reflect various popular subjects (New Year, ghosts and monsters, warriors and heroes, morality). This allowed the publishers to produce beautifully illustrated prints in the Edo period, and 19C and 20C magazines to have Sugoroku games as cheap pull-outs.

The main difference between Tobi-Sugoroku and Mawari-Sugoroku is that in the former, movement is across the network of squares, whereas in the latter, movement is along a controlled path (similar to Game of Goose). Any Sugoroku game with pictures is known as E-Sugoroku (E- means 'picture').