Katha-ran is a multiplayer game based teaching aid for teaching Sanskrit language sentence structure and grammar with the engaging and attractive activity of building stories for the participants

Players: 4 or 2 divided as 2 teams + 1 Game master (SootraDhaar) who should ideally be a teacher/ mentor expert in Sanskrit

Setting: Synchronous Physical / Digital presence

Objective: Teaching Sanskrit Sentence construction based on ancient Indian literature,

Teaching the use of parts of speech to frame sentences in Sanskrit to Kids of age 10

Game objective: To create sentences for scoring highest and complete the board steps or complete the story, whichever comes first.

Game Pieces with examples from story level 1:

Nouns: 15 (नृप, अंगरक्षक, मर्कट...)

Adjectives: 15 (प्रिय, मूर्ख, त्रस्त, मृत...)

Vibhakti: 30 (:, ा , म्, ेन back ेण, ा:, ाौ, ाय, ात्)

Verbs: 15 (विदध, हर, विश, भव, आसीत्...)

Verb Pratyaya: 15(ति स्म, त्, ति, ामि, न्ति...)

Upasarga: 10 (प्र, वि, नि...)

Special Pieces: 10 (एक, एकदा…)

1. SootraDhaar starts with reading the points of the story to the players in the language everyone is comfortable with (English, in given level 1). These points are kept visible to all once reading is done.

2. Cards having related words from the story (either level 1 default cards, or designed by SootraDhaar) are dealt as - 3 per player from each of the piles of Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, 3 Verb Pratyaya, 3 Upasarga, and 5 Vibhaktis.

3. Required extensions for storytelling can be added on blank cards provided as a separate deck. If the players use a blank card apart from the ones edited by SootraDhaar, they pay a penalty of -2 in the score.

4. The players are allowed to use special pieces for beautifying their sentences, but only in correct ways as per the grammar rule given by SootraDhaar. Each use of a special word contributes to +2 score addition.

5. Each player team can pick cards of their choice to use one of the nouns, adjectives, verbs of their selection from the cards in the pile of the one whose turn starts.

6. They place it in front of them in order to form a meaningful sentence.

7. The players may (recommended) choose vibhakti and verb Pratyaya coins to append as the jigsaw extensions to the used cards, teammates can help each other.

8. The players are allowed to take help from any resources, except for copying a version of the story. SutraDhaar supervises and provides hints on sentence attempts after 2 minutes of trial by the player team.

9. Once a correct sentence is constructed, the SootraDhaar validates it and the players can move ahead with as many steps as the number of word cards (diamonds) used in the sentence. Depending upon the sentence structure complexity and challenge satisfaction, the SootraDhaar can decide to award points between 0 to 10.

10. On the next team's turn, the player ahead can either use their own cards, or borrow the words facing them on the other players’ cards, or draw a fresh blank card or the unused ones from the pile and use the card to create a new sentence, taking the story forward on their side.

11. The marks are again awarded in the same manner as in (7), however, for any player using a blank card, they lose 2 points from the scores. For using unused placards from the provided set, they will lose 1 point only.

12. Not being able to meet a challenge even with correct sentences, the score is 5. Grammatically correct, simple sentence formation with challenge completion 7 marks. Exceptional sentence formation with challenge completion 10 marks.

13. The objective of the game is to complete the story with as many sentences as the teams can, earn scores per move (constituting on sentence), and score maximum points as a team.

14. Final score will be counted on reaching END block of the board, or on completion of the story, whichever comes first.

15. On completing the story meaningfully exactly on the END point, the player team making the sentence is awarded +10 bonus points.