LAC-LUCK

how to play:

Lacluck is a table board game for 3 or more players. Two players team up and while one represents the helper of Kunti, the other is the Spirit of Goodness. The other team forms the Spirit of Evil.

GAME STORY:

The Pandavas have been caught in the Lac palace which was set on fire, and due to the warning of Vidura, are now making their way to the tunnels. The palace on fire, has already lost many a floorboard and any accident may just plummet them downwards into the burning recesses of the earth!

Kunti, stranded and scared, hears the cries of her sons, caught under the falling beams in various parts of the basement floor. She is the only one who can help them. While the action on earth continues, two forces of good and evil hover around the palace, helping and hurting the Pandavas.

While one tries to open up all the floorboards, almost with poltergeist happiness, the other closes them for the Pandavas to move on.

The player’s goal is to help Kunti cross this basement floor, rescuing her sons and somehow reach the mouth of the tunnel.

While one of the Pandava team’s member tries to maneuver the figurine, the other closes up the floorboards. The Kaurava team, alas, has other plans and slyly open up the floorboards to make the Pandavas plummet into the burning molten lac that is seeping its way from below.

GAME RULES:

The player uses the spoon to maneuver Kunti’s figurine through the arrow maze. The maze takes her to her five sons, whom she rescues. The goal is to reach the end, where a soldier Vidura sent to help awaits near the mouth of the tunnel.

The game should not be paused at any cost. All three players must keep moving continuously.

If Kunti falls below the pit, she needs to start from the beginning again, in her flight to rescue and escape.

Kunti should reach the tunnel within five minutes, else the lac palace gets completely burnt, and so do the Pandavas. The game ends.

NOTES FROM THE DESIGNER:

I grew up listening to tales of the Mahabharata, and even as a child, I always used to feel that it was one of the most wonderfully real stories I had ever heard. Full of human frailties, problems, treachery- it depicted a very real picture of the world to me. Although I recognized this to a very minimal extent back then, as a child; I only realize how relevant the Mahabharata continues till date.

B.R.Chopra’s televised serial Mahabharata was part of my weekend diet of TV programmes. With its wonderful cast and some riveting performances, it had me glued. I found the Lac palace incident one of the most interesting parts of the Mahabharata and this game was inspired from the same.

The whole concepts of device, conceive, trap, counter device and escape seemed interesting to work on. I’ve tried to use these concepts in my design of the game too. The route is devised; the game with its open floorboards is devised. The traps can be opened and counter-closed to escape.