Snakes and Ladders

About this game

Snakes and Ladders is the oldest kind of board game there is — a pure race, decided entirely by the die, on a track of a hundred squares that winds left to right and then right to left all the way to the top. Seven ladders and eight snakes are printed on the board, and every one of them is visible from the first roll, which is what makes the game work: you can see the ladder at 76 four turns before you reach it, and you can see the snake at 95 sitting between you and home the whole way up. There is nothing to decide, and that is the point. Every player has exactly one legal move and must make it, so nobody is outplayed and nobody is out-thought — the whole table rises and falls on the same die. What the game asks of you instead is nerve, because the swings are enormous. The ladder at 9 lifts you twenty-two squares in a single roll. The snake at 88 drops you back into the sixties when you were three rolls from finishing. Landing on 63 puts you on the ladder to 81 and effectively ends the race; landing on 56 puts you on a snake back to 36 and starts it again. The finish is exact. You must roll precisely the number that lands you on 100, and anything larger bounces you back off the end of the board by the difference — so from 99 a six sends you to 100 and then back down to 95, which is a snake head, which sends you all the way to 67. That single rule is what keeps the last stretch tense instead of a formality, and it is the reason a game that looks decided almost never is. A six also earns you another roll, though three sixes in a row forfeits the turn entirely. Play against one, two or three computer opponents. Tokens hop square by square along the track rather than jumping to the answer, ladders are climbed and snakes are slid down, and every roll and every fall is announced for screen readers as well as drawn. The board fits a phone in portrait, the die is a real button you can reach with the keyboard, and each token carries its own number so it is never identified by colour alone.

Controls

Tap the die to roll — that is the whole game.

Keyboard

• Space, Enter or R rolls the die.
• Enter starts a new race once someone has finished.

Table

• Use the 2P / 3P / 4P control to set how many players are at the table.

How to play

Every player starts off the board and takes turns rolling a single die, advancing that many squares along the numbered track.

• Row one runs 1 to 10 left to right, row two runs 11 to 20 right to left, and so on to 100 at the top.
• Land on the foot of a ladder, marked with an up triangle, and you climb it to the square at its head.
• Land on a snake's head, marked with a down triangle, and you slide down to its tail.
• Only the square you finish your move on counts — passing over a ladder or a snake does nothing, and a ladder or snake never chains into a second one.

Finishing exactly

• You must roll the exact number needed to land on 100
• Roll too many and your token bounces back off the end of the board by the difference
• So from 97 a roll of six takes you to 100 and then back to 97
• The square you bounce onto is live, so you can still be caught by a snake on the way back.

Sixes

• Rolling a six earns you another roll, but three sixes in a row forfeits your turn with no move at all.
• The first player to land exactly on 100 wins.

Read the full Snakes and Ladders rules and strategy →