Short answers to the questions people ask about these games. Each one names its source.
How do you play Pachisi?
Pachisi is a race round a cross-shaped board of 96 squares, where two to four players each move four pieces by throwing six cowrie shells. A throw of 6, 10 or 25 is a grace: it brings a piece onto the board and earns another throw. Landing by exact count on enemy pieces off a safe square sends them back to the centre, and two pieces together cannot be captured. The first side with all its pieces home wins.
I.L. Finkel, "The Four-Arm Race", in The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India, ed. Andrew Topsfield (Marg, 2006), with Abu'l Fazl's A'in-i Akbari (Blochmann, pp. 315–16), and Kori's pachisi rule file
Gyan Chaupar, "the chaupar of knowledge", is the Indian ancestor of Snakes and Ladders: a board on which the player's piece is a soul rising and falling on its way out of rebirth. The most common Hindu board has 72 squares in eight columns of nine, and the winning square is 68, Vaikuntha, Vishnu's heaven, not the last square. The ladders are virtues and the snakes vices. Kori plays this board as জ্ঞান চৌপর ৭২.
Andrew Topsfield, "Instant Karma: The Meaning of Snakes and Ladders", in The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India, ed. Andrew Topsfield (Marg, 2006), pp. 75–79, 87
Ludo is a simplified English version of pachisi, and the main difference is the dice. Pachisi is thrown with six or seven cowrie shells, and grace throws of 6, 10 and 25 bring a piece onto the board; Ludo uses one cubic die, and a six does that job. Pachisi's four pieces a side, captures, blockades of two and exact finish survived; the partnerships and the betting did not. Ludo came back to India around the 1950s.
I.L. Finkel, "The Four-Arm Race", in The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India, ed. Andrew Topsfield (Marg, 2006), final page, and Kori's rule files for Ludo and pachisi
The sheep win by hemming in both tigers so that neither can move; the tigers win by taking sheep until too few are left to trap them. In Chaal, two tigers face twenty sheep on a five-by-five board of 25 points, with no dice, and a tiger takes a sheep by jumping over it to the empty point beyond, one jump a turn. Chaal gives the tigers the win below seven sheep, the fewest that can still trap two.
I.L. Finkel, "Sheep Against Tigers: Indian Hunt Games", in The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India, ed. Andrew Topsfield (Marg, 2006), pp. 121–122, and Chaal's Bagh-bandi rule file
Ganj is a Mughal dice race for treasure, a relative of the European Game of Goose, and not ganjifa, the round-card game. Its rules survive on a board drawn at Lucknow about 1784 for Richard Johnson, now in the British Library. Players throw two dice along a spiral of 64 squares, paying stakes into the Treasure, burnt at the Fire-temple, jailed by the Magician, held by the Dragon. Kori plays it for two to six players, with in-game counters.
Simon Digby, "Treasure: The Mughal Game of Ganj", in The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India, ed. Andrew Topsfield (Marg, 2006), pp. 107–116, and Kori's Ganj rule file
Chess came from India. Its first clear traces are in Sanskrit books of the early 7th century: at the court of King Harsha (606–648), Bana puns on chaturanga, "four limbs", the four parts of an Indian army, which are still four of the six pieces. The game passed to Persia, where Sanskrit chaturanga became chatrang, then Arabic shatranj. Firdausi's Shahnama tells how an Indian envoy dared Nushirwan's court to work out the rules; Murray calls that story pure invention.
H.J.R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), pp. 42, 51–52, 149–157
Yes, Kori is free to download and play, and it shows ads: a short one after a finished game, at most once in three games, and videos you choose to watch for an extra hint, a take-back or in-game coins. There is no real-money play and no gambling. The coins are earned by playing or by those videos; they cannot be bought in the app today, and nothing can be cashed out.
Gutikhela: the apps' code and Play Store listings, read 2026-10-23
Yes, the games play offline. In Kori and Chaal every game, the computer opponent and Chaal's daily chess puzzle run on the phone itself; no part of the play needs a server. An internet connection is used only for the ads, when one is shown, and for the apps' analytics, which count usage and never block play. That is read from the code; the apps have not been tested in flight mode on a phone.
Gutikhela: the apps' code and Play Store listings, read 2026-10-23
Yes, both apps are Bengali-first, with English alongside. The Bengali copy is written first and the English is a rendering of it. On Android the first run offers a language choice with Bengali preselected, and you can switch between Bengali and English at any time in Settings. The Bengali names the apps use are লুডু, সাপ লুডু, পঁচিশি, চৌপর and গঞ্জ in Kori, and দাবা and বাঘবন্দি in Chaal.
Gutikhela: the apps' code and Play Store listings, read 2026-10-23
The apps have no chat and no real money, so a child cannot talk to strangers or spend anything in them. Both show ads, served by Google AdMob with its consent form where one is required; no ad interrupts play, and the only ad during a game is a video the player asked for. Analytics count usage, not people. We make no age-rating or certification claim here. Treat Kori and Chaal as ad-supported board games.
Gutikhela: the apps' code and Play Store listings, read 2026-10-23