Aggravation (board Game)

Aggravation (board Game)

Aggravation is a board game for up to six players in which the object is to be the first player to have all four playing pieces (usually represented by marbles) reach the player's home section of the board. The game's name comes from the action of capturing an opponent's piece by landing on its space, which is known as "aggravating."

Aggravation is one of the many variations of the game Pachisi. It was first produced in 1962 by CO-5 Company. Later versions were made by Minneapolis-based Lakeside Industries, a division of Leisure Dynamic. Today, it is manufactured by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro.

Its distinctive features are that the track that accommodates six players, unlike other Pachisi-like games which only allow four, that it is normally drilled to accept colored glass marbles as playing pieces, and that it incorporates "shortcuts." There are no "safe" holes where a player's marbles cannot be captured (or "aggravated," in the game's parlance) other than the player's own base and home sections.

Older versions of the game usually feature an asterisk-shaped board, which is perfectly symmetrical and identical in shape and size from all angles. However, modern versions of the game produced by Parker Brothers are made in an irregular pattern with a shape that varies for each player, though all players must travel an equal number of spaces in order to reach their respective home sections.