Paradise Road

The Basics: Players take turns racing their pawns around a simple highway map. The first player to hit each big city and then return home is the winner.

To begin, each player chooses a home city, and starts their pawn there. Place a token on each of the five large cities including your home city. Roll dice to determine the first player.

Each turn, players take two dice from the bank, and roll them together with any dice they have left from their last turn. You can move along any road segment by spending a matching die, or several dice that add up exactly to the length of the road. Hit all the big cities and return home to win!

You will neeed a pawn, three dice, and five tokens for each player. The board can be printed at any size, but we recommend at least 11 x 15 so that your racers have plenty of room.

Here are the files for printing your own copy:

• Paradise Road Rules (V 2.2 12/4/24)

• Paradise Road Board (South Carolina) V 2.0 11/20/24

• How to Play Paradise Road Video

• Making Game Boards Video

Background: James Ernest and friends created the first version of Paradise Road in September 2005. The game never really clicked, and it was eventually abandoned. Soon after, the original artwork was lost in a hard drive crash. A copy of the board surfaced last summer in James Ernest’s basement, almost daring James to rebuild the game. Working from the printed board and a vague recollection of the rules, James reinveted this game in November 2024, and we now bring you a version that’s almost worth the 20-year wait.

The game is still in beta test and we’d love to make more boards, once we have the core mechanics figured out. Do you have a favorite map that should be our next board? Please let us know!