Schnelle Schnecke 1977

Schnelle Schnecke (Fast Snail) is a racing game game that is best described as a mathematician's Chutes and Ladders. The board shows a circular track as the body of a snail, and players start at the head and try to be the first to get their piece into the end space in the center, by way of 45 spaces. Some of the spaces have arrows that point to other spaces.

Each player gets three sticks, and each turn both players will put a number of sticks (or none) into one hand secretly. Both hands are revealed, and the active player moves that number of spaces forward. The key, of course, is to try to get your piece to spaces with helpful arrows (or no arrows) while pushing your opponent into spaces with arrows that send them backwards.

The pieces are very nice, with real shells for the player pieces and a well-sized roll-put board.