Poleana 2021

Poleana is a game that became popular in Mexican prisons, in Ciudad del Mexico, as it can be played with a set of dice and a numbered board, it represents a metaphor for the prisoner's life inside the jail, and its chase for freedom. It is said to be called Poleana from the short slang "Pole" which means Police, it should represent also the escape from police, also seen as "Police and Thieves" (Policias y Ladrones. However it is also said to be a simple derivation from the popular game "Pollyanna".

Poleana loosely follows the rules of Pachisi and Sorry, It is played on a square wooden box with a sunken center to roll 2 d6 dices. Four players, each with four squared colored pieces, race to navigate the board, for each 6 casted (in either combination of the two dices) the player can "release" a piece from the "jail", if the player rolls two 6s, two pieces can be released and moved onto the board, if a player casts 6 - 3, then one piece is released while a second piece is placed on the "soon to be released" 3 spot. If there are sufficient free pieces, a player can choose to either use the sum of its dices to move one piece (5+2), which moves one piece or move one piece forward of 5 places and another 2 places onwards. On the opposite side of the table is your "opponent", so it's a 1vs1 and 1vs1 game. Same as in Sorry! If your piece goes in the same tile of an enemy's player the piece returns to "jail". The game is over when a player gets all his 4 coloured tiles around the board and into the "exit zone" (which is the designated colored corner).