Games you can play for free - Perudo

I have decided to embark upon a new project. The aim of this project is to research, gather together and produce information that enables people to play a wide variety of excellent games for free. Over the next few months, I hope to post a definitive set of rules for many different games on this blog. The games will either be classic games or games that are adaptations of commercial products. All the games I feature can be played using equipment that can be found around the house; whether that be a standard pack of cards, dice, blank paper or just your imagination. Please let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions or if you know any good games that would be suitable for this project.

The first game I am featuring is called Perudo, a bidding game using dice that originates from South America. A version of the game was featured in the film ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’.

Perudo

Number of players: 2 upwards

Playing time: 15 minutes

You will need:

• Cups (equal to the number of players
• Dice (equal to 5 * the number of players)

Perudo is a dice game. The object of Perudo is to be the last player to have any dice remaining.

Each player begins the game with a cup and five dice. Each round stars with players shaking their dice in the cup before placing their cup face down on a table such that all dice are concealed underneath it. Players may look at the dice underneath their own cup.

Players bid, guessing a number between 2 – 6 and the number of times that the number occurs amongst all players’ dice. A 1 is ‘wild’ and counts as the stated face of the current bid. In a three player game the lowest bid is ‘one * 2’, while the highest bid is ‘fifteen * 6’  (fifteen being the number of dice amongst all players).

Following a bid, play progresses clockwise. Each player, on their turn, has two choices: make a higher bid, or challenge the previous bid as being incorrect. Making a higher bid involves increasing the quantity of any face, or bidding the same quantity of a higher value face. For example, given a bid of ‘four * 4’, the minimum raise is either ‘five * any face’ or ‘four * 5’. Raises are not restricted to the minimum raise; players may raise to any legal bid.

If a player thinks that the previous player’s bid is incorrect, they may challenge it. Upon a challenge being made, all dice are revealed to determine whether or not the bid was valid. If the number of times the relevant dice face occurs is at least as high as the bid, the bid is valid and the challenge was unsuccessful. In this instance the person challenging discards a dice. If the number of times the relevant dice face occurs is lower than the bid, the bid is not valid and the challenge was successful. In this instance the person who made the bid discards a dice.

The player who lost a dice begins the next round. If that player lost their last dice, they are out and the player to their left begins the next round.

If a player has just lost their fourth dice, they are called ‘Palafico’ and the next round should be played differently. Firstly, 1 is no longer ‘wild’. Secondly, players may bid with 1. Thirdly, players who have not been ‘Palafico’ before (i.e. those with more than one dice remaining) may only bid on the dice face that the person before them bid on. ‘Palafico’ rules do not apply when only two players are remaining.

The winner is the last player to have any dice left.

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