Sorry!

1 Introduction

Sorry! has been a family game night staple since the 1930s. The premise is delightfully mean: race your four pawns from Start to Home while bumping opponents backward at every opportunity. The Sorry! card — letting you send an opponent all the way back to their Start while saying "Sorry!" — is one of the most satisfying moves in board gaming, especially when delivered to a sibling who was almost home.

Sorry! is a card-driven race game with no dice. The deck creates uncertainty and ensures no two games play out the same way. Luck plays a significant role, but managing which pawns to move, when to bump versus advance, and how to protect your leading pawns adds real decisions to every turn.

2 Components

• 1 game board with a track of spaces, colored Start and Home areas, Safety Zones, and colored slides
• 4 pawns per player (4 colors: red, blue, green, yellow)
• 45 cards: 5 each of 1 and 2; 4 each of 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12; and 4 Sorry! cards

3 Setup

Each player places all 4 of their pawns in their colored Start area. Shuffle the cards and place them face-down in the center as a draw pile. The discard pile starts empty. Choose a starting player (youngest, most impatient, or random).

4 Objective

Be the first player to get all four of your pawns into your Home area. Pawns must travel the entire board track (clockwise) from Start, through the outer ring, and into the Safety Zone leading to Home.

5 How to Play

On your turn, draw the top card from the draw pile and follow its instructions. You must use the card if you legally can. If you cannot use the card at all, your turn ends. Discard the card face-up on the discard pile. When the draw pile runs out, shuffle the discard pile to make a new one.

Moving Out of Start

Pawns begin in Start and must be moved out before they can travel the board. Only a 1 or 2 card can move a pawn out of Start (placing it on the first space just outside Start). A Sorry! card can also bring a pawn out of Start directly to an opponent's space.

Moving Pawns

Once on the board, move a pawn the number of spaces indicated by the card (clockwise unless the card specifies backward). You choose which of your pawns to move. You cannot move a pawn onto a space occupied by one of your own pawns. If you land on an opponent's pawn, you bump it back to their Start.

6 Card Reference

7 Slides

There are four colored slides on the board, each belonging to one player color. When you land on the first space of a slide that is not your own color, you slide to the end automatically. Any pawns (including your own) in your path or at the slide's end are bumped back to their Start.

You do not slide on your own color's slide — you simply stop on the first space as normal. Slides can be incredibly powerful for covering large distances and disrupting opponents who are close to Home.

8 Safety Zone and Home

Safety Zone

Just before Home, each player has a 5-space Safety Zone in their own color. Only your own pawns may enter your Safety Zone. Opponents' pawns cannot enter it, making it a completely protected path. You enter the Safety Zone by passing the entry point on the board (after traveling almost all the way around).

Entering Home

Home is at the end of the Safety Zone. To move a pawn into Home, you must land on it with an exact count — you cannot overshoot. If your pawn is 2 spaces from Home and you draw an 8, you cannot use that card to move that pawn (unless you have other pawns to move). Pawns in Home are permanently safe and cannot be moved or bumped.

The game ends the moment a player moves their last pawn into Home.

9 Strategy Tips

Protect Pawns Near Home

Once a pawn enters the Safety Zone, protect it from an 11 swap by keeping other pawns on the board too. An 11 card cannot swap with a pawn in the Safety Zone — only pawns on the main track are vulnerable.

Use the Sorry! Card Wisely

The Sorry! card is most powerful against an opponent pawn that is about to enter their Safety Zone. Sending that pawn back to Start is a massive tempo swing. Resist the urge to use it early on a pawn that has barely left Start.

Splitting the 7

The 7 card lets you split movement between two pawns. Use this to get exact counts into Home for one pawn while advancing another. Splitting 7 into two exact Home entries is one of the most satisfying plays in the game.

10 Wrong House Rules

"You Can Overshoot Home"

Wrong. You must land on Home with an exact count. Extra movement is wasted on a pawn at Home's doorstep. You must wait for the right card or use another pawn.

"You Don't Have to Use the Card"

Wrong. If you can legally move any pawn with the drawn card, you must do so. You cannot forfeit a card that has valid moves just because you don't want to use it.

"Sorry! Cards Can Be Used on Your Own Pawns"

Wrong. Sorry! cards are offensive only. You take a pawn from your Start and place it on an opponent's space. You cannot place it on your own pawn's space.

11 History

Sorry! was first published in England in 1929 by W.H. Storey & Co. under the name "Sorry," derived from the "Pachisi" family of race games that originated in India. Parker Brothers brought it to the American market in 1934, and it became one of the best-selling board games of the mid-20th century. The game is a commercial adaptation of Pachisi, which is itself the game that inspired Ludo, Trouble, and other race-and-bump games.

Hasbro (which acquired Parker Brothers) continues to publish Sorry! today. Various editions have updated the card distribution and board design while keeping the core mechanics intact. A card-based electronic edition and several theme variants have been released over the decades. The game remains a perennial family favorite thanks to its combination of strategic decisions and satisfying chaos.

12 Frequently Asked Questions