The snakes and ladders rules fit on half a page, and they are the same on a printed board and in a browser. I put them here in the order a table needs them: setup, a turn, the jumps, and the finish. Where the table I build does something specific, I say so, because I wrote the code that enforces it. I am Ahmed Moaz, and I build Boardit on my own from Egypt.
What do you need to start?
A board of 100 squares, one die, and a counter for each person. The squares run from 1 to 100, with ladders and snakes drawn across them. On the Classic board I run, ten snakes face nine ladders. A snakes and ladders game on Boardit seats two to eight people, which is more than most paper boards hold comfortably. It is a pure dice game, so the setup ends there.
Every piece waits beside the grid at first. Nobody stands on square 1 at the start, and the first throw puts each piece on. That detail matters on the Classic board, because a ladder begins on square 1 and ends on 38. Open with a one and your piece goes straight up.
How does a turn work?
Roll, then count forward in number order. The next person goes after you. There is nothing to choose: no piece to pick, no route to plan.
With nothing to decide, an online turn gets a short clock of 30 seconds. If you have not thrown by then, the game throws for you. Miss two turns running and a bot covers your seat until you return. The piece and your place stay yours.
In the standard board game rules, a six is only a six. You move six squares and that is all. A host may enable a six that gives another throw, but that is a house rule.
What do ladders and snakes do?
If a move finishes where a ladder starts, the piece rides to the top. If it finishes on a snake's mouth, the piece slides to the tail. Only the square where you stop counts. Passing over a jump on the way does nothing.
The jump happens once. None of my layouts lets a ladder end on a snake, or a snake end where a ladder starts, so one landing never sets off a second jump. Pieces may stack on one square, and nobody is sent home by another player.
Do you have to land on 100 exactly?
In the standard rules, yes. Stand on 97, roll a five, and you stay put until your next turn. The first counter to land exactly on 100 wins.
I calculated the average for one piece racing alone on Classic: 39.23 throws with the exact finish. If an overshoot counted as a win, it would be 35.83. So the rule costs about 3.4 throws. This is a model of the default rules, not a record of real games.
Some tables use a bounce instead. The piece walks up to 100 and returns for the remainder. A host can pick that too.
Playing snakes and ladders online with friends
If your table is spread over several homes, Boardit runs this game free in a browser, and guests only type a name.
The die is thrown for you and the pieces move themselves, so that covers everything you have to do. It is also how I check my own work: I read these rules against what the board does. For paper players, nothing in the list changes.
The rules on one card
- Pieces wait off the grid; the first roll brings each on.
- Each turn is a single roll, and it moves you forward.
- Ladders lift you. Snakes drop you.
- Land on 100 by exact count. A bigger number leaves you where you are.
- Two pieces may sit on one square.
Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.