Utara 2011

Utara is a dice game that makes a game board from any surface on earth. The game's theme calls to mind constellations and stellar navigation.

Utara makes use of several dice that in each face says either North, East, South, or West. The fifth face has a Sun and the sixth face is Moon. You can use any number of dice to play, with a minimum of ten dice per player. More dice will allow higher scores, possibly longer games and require more space to play.

Give the playing surface directions, meaning north, south, east and west. Players roll their dice on the playing surface at the same time. Pick one player to start randomly. The player chooses a die with a cardinal direction in it, and moves it in the direction of its face up. When meeting another dice, collect it and change directions to match the new dice face. Continue in this manner until you go out of bounds. Then the next player does the same thing and so on.

The game ends when no more North, East, South or West dice remain. Each player scores one point for every die in their collection.

It is best to play a few rounds of Utara, once for each participating player. The player who had the fewest points in the previous round should take the first turn in the next round, so they have an opportunity to catch up. Points are tallied over a series of rounds to determine the winner.