Backgammon Reborn: Re-releasing Classic Games in Kiddie Packaging

I had posted this somewhere in Games, but someone said I ought to try here, so here goes:

So I was introducing my 5-year-old niece to Backgammon, and creating some crazy explanations on the fly, like "These guys have to make it home without getting caught" and "they want to stay in the same house so they're safe" and such. And it struck me that it might be possible to create a version of Backgammon for young girls, dressed up like Candyland or Strawberry Shortcake.

So I'm asking for help on a couple problems I'm having, and also opening this thread for the discussion of other classic games that could be reintroduced to the younger generation in a flashier form. I'm talking board games and card games. I know a lot of such games have been reborn in such fashion, whether or not the original ever left the playing field, so let's stick to ones that haven't (as far as we know).

Also, I want to stick with the original rules, by and large. I would hope a person who grew up playing the new Backgammon would be able to shift seamlessly into the classic Backgammon without always making mistakes about basic gameplay. However, I'm not against a few innovations or expanded gameplay rules.

So here's what I came up with so far:

• The board is one block in the suburbs, six houses on each side of the block. In the middle is a forest or playground or the like. (The picture won't be square, but diamond-shaped, to be more visually appealing.)
  • I could also see a mall, though I hate to think of adding to the mall-based kiddie games in the world.
• The teams are two groups of kids trying to accomplish some project before the other team gets done.
• The settings that come to mind are "Girl Scouts selling cookies door-to-door" and "Halloween Trick-or-Treating". I'm open to other suggestions.

Here's how Backgammon works, in case you need a refresher. I'll call the teams Bob and Alice. The sides of the board will be A, B, C, and D.

• Bob's home is the A side. He walks his pieces from D around C and B to get to A.
• Alice's home is the D side. She walks her pieces from A around B and C to get to D.
• The aim is to get all pieces to the home side, at which point you can start removing them from the board. Each turn you can move up to two pieces (up to 4 if you roll doubles).
• Strategy mostly involves not leaving a piece by itself, since then it can be captured and sent back to the other side of the board, making you hop it around again before you can get back to moving your pieces off the board entirely. Likewise, keep your eyes open for chance to capture your opponent's pieces without putting yours in danger.
  • Higher-level strategy involves blocking the opponent's journey home by making several spots in a row unavailable (six in a row is impassable), or blocking up your home entirely and then capturing one of his pieces (if he can't get his piece back on the board, he has to just keep skipping his turn until you open things up again).

You start with pieces spread out on the board in a specific pattern: two in the opponent's home, five in your own home, three near your home, and five near the opponent's home. So I'm assuming your team got split up doing whatever errands, and then spotted the opponent's team at work and realized they had to hurry up and get their work finished and get back home before the other team did.

• First Question: Why try to get home faster than the other group? What's at stake here?

Now, the die rolls represent, presumably, the ability of a kid to get candy (or conclude business with a customer) and move on to the next house (or multiple houses; perhaps the ones he skips don't have people there right now).

• Second Question: Why do the kids move one-at-a-time, instead of in pairs? (Especially since buddy systems are important IRL in these activities, and in the game if you avoid buddy systems you can get captured.)

• Third Question: What prevents kids from going to the same spot as other kids?
  • (In the Girl Scouts version, easily enough, you wouldn't try to hit up a house where there are rival Girl Scouts already there.)

I assume "capturing" is more like "Bob runs Tim off; Tim gets lost in the woods, and eventually finds his way out on the wrong side of the block." Not very satisfying solution, but what else can you do with little kids? We can't have killing, wounding, or prisoners of war, I think.

An alternative does come to mind: Maybe the kids have to grab something from the opposite side of the block and bring it home, and the capturing is when that thing gets lost, broken, or stolen. Therefore the kid goes back to one of the starting houses to get another one. (For candy this might be a treat bag.)

That alternative opens up the most possibilities for enhanced gameplay, since you could gain extra goody bags (or whatever) if you steal them from kids you capture. Consider: Each piece has one or more stackable tops; when a piece captures another piece, the stackable tops transfer to the captor, who is then more valuable (since he has more goodies) and offers more points if you can get him home. Maybe when you have 2 or more pieces on a space, you can transfer the stackables between them however you see fit.

Anyway:

• Fourth Question: What's the explanation for capturing? How does it put the character back on the opposite side of the board? Why can the player not do anything else until the character is back on the board?

And some other questions:

• What's the explanation for doubles letting you move twice as much?
• Once you're at home row, pulling kids off (to go to a party or turn in their paperwork or go off to bed or whatever), what's the explanation for why rolling the wrong number means a kid has to move forward a couple houses rather than heading off for the party? And if this is the kids' home, how can they still be captured if they're by themselves?

So... any ideas?

Thanks in advance.