Play Yutnori (윷놀이), the Korean traditional board game, free in your browser. Throw the four yut sticks, race your four mals around the board, capture the AI and take diagonal shortcuts. No download required.
Yutnori is played by throwing four flat sticks and moving four mals around a square board. The number of sticks that land flat names your throw: Do moves one space, Gae two, Geol three, Yut four, and Mo five. Yut and Mo also grant another throw, so a lucky start can carry a mal a long way in a single turn. You move a mal forward by your throw, or bring a fresh mal onto the board. The first side to send all four mals once around the track and out past the finish line wins the game.
Because each stick is equally likely to land flat or round, Gae and Geol come up most often, while Yut and Mo are rarer but reward you with a bonus throw. Good players weigh whether to rush a single leading mal toward the finish or spread their throws across several mals to keep pressure everywhere. Holding mals together can be safer, but advancing aggressively wins races when the sticks fall your way.
The board rewards precision. Stopping a mal exactly on a corner or the center opens a diagonal path straight across, cutting many spaces off the journey, so players aim to land their throws right on those junctions. Captures are just as decisive: land your mal on an opponent and it is sent all the way back to the start while you earn a bonus throw. Spreading your mals out covers more of the board, but it also exposes them to being captured.
Yutnori is one of the most beloved games of Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, when families gather and split into teams to throw the sticks with great cheering. Its appeal lies in needing almost nothing — four sticks and a board drawn on a mat — while blending luck and tactics so that grandparents and children compete on equal footing. For centuries it has been a centerpiece of holiday gatherings, and this browser version brings that festive race to a quick game against the computer.
Yutnori (윷놀이) is a traditional Korean board game played by throwing four wooden yut sticks and racing four mals (tokens) around a board. It is a staple of Korean New Year (Seollal) celebrations for families of all ages.
You throw four sticks; each lands flat or round. The flats are counted: Do (1), Gae (2), Geol (3), Yut (4), Mo (5). Throwing Yut or Mo earns you another throw, so big turns can chain together.
If a mal stops exactly on a corner or the center, it can cut across a diagonal instead of going the long way around, reaching the finish much faster. Landing on the corners is the key to a quick win.
Landing a mal on an opponent's mal sends that mal back to start and grants you a bonus throw. A well-timed capture can swing the whole game.
Each side has four mals; you win by bringing all four around the board and out past the finish. Combining shortcuts, captures, and bonus throws is the path to victory.