Everything you need, from your first roll to the tricks that decide close games. No experience needed — you can learn this in a minute.
The board is a hundred squares, numbered 1 in the bottom left up to 100 at the top. Everyone starts off the board. You roll a die, move that many squares, and the first player to land on 100 wins.
That is the whole game. Everything else is the board helping you or getting in your way.
Press ROLL. The die gives you a number from one to six and your token walks that many squares along the board, following the numbers. The rows run left to right, then right to left, snaking up the board — just follow the numbers and you cannot go wrong.
When your move finishes, the next player goes. With two, three or four players you pass the device round the table.
Finish your move on the foot of a ladder and you climb straight to the top of it. You do not roll again — the climb is the rest of your turn.
There are nine ladders. The biggest climb is square 69, which lifts you to 91, and the run of ladders at 61, 65 and 69 can carry you more than twenty squares in one turn. Early on, square 9 (to 30) and square 13 (to 33) give a fast start.
Land on a snake’s head and you slide down to its tail. Same idea in reverse, and just as final. There are nine snakes.
The square everyone learns to dread is 87. It drops you to 48, wiping out thirty-nine squares of progress in one roll. Then there is 98, which sends you back to 77 when you were two squares from winning, and 95, which sends you to 75. They sit in the home straight, which is exactly why the end of a game is never safe.
You must land on 100 exactly. If you are on 97 you need a three. Roll a four, a five or a six and there is nowhere to move to, so you stay put and lose the turn.
This is why a game that looked finished can drag on. Somebody sits on 96 needing a four while another player quietly climbs a ladder behind them. It is the most common way a lead disappears.
Honestly, not much — and that is the point. The die decides everything, which is why a six-year-old can beat an adult and why nobody minds losing.
What you can do is watch the board. Knowing that 87, 95 and 98 are traps makes the last stretch tense in a good way, and knowing the ladders at 61, 65 and 69 are there gives everyone something to hope for. That knowledge will not change your rolls, but it makes the game far more fun to watch. Our odds guide has the numbers.
The board is a grid of ten rows of ten. Row one runs left to right from 1 to 10, row two runs right to left from 11 to 20, and so on up the board, which is why the numbers snake back and forth. The last square, 100, is at the top.
Ladders are drawn leaning up from their foot to their top, and snakes wind from their head down to their tail. Only the foot of a ladder and the head of a snake do anything. Landing on the top of a ladder or the tail of a snake does nothing at all.
ROLL DICE rolls for the current player. UNDO steps the board back one move if someone tapped by mistake. HINT checks the six squares ahead of the current player and flashes a ladder to hope for or a snake to avoid. The player-count selector sets two, three or four players, and you can turn sound on or off.
Each game costs 10 coins, and every new account starts with 200 free coins. More details are in our guide to coins and games.
How many can play? Two, three or four players on one device.
Do I get another go if I roll a six? No. Every turn is one roll.
What if I roll too high at the end? You stay where you are and the turn passes on.
Who wins? The first player to land exactly on square 100.
Do ladders and snakes ever chain together? No. After a slide or climb, your turn is over, even if you land on another foot or head.
It is one of the best first board games there is. There are no decisions to get wrong, so young children play on equal terms with adults from the first turn. Counting the squares out loud is good practice for them too.
If a game is running long with little ones, agreeing beforehand that you do not need an exact roll to finish keeps everyone happy.
It began in India, where it was played as a game about morality: the ladders stood for virtues that lifted you up, and the snakes for vices that dragged you down. The board had more snakes than ladders on purpose, to make the point that doing wrong is easier than doing right.
It reached Britain in the late 1800s and the lesson quietly fell away, leaving the game everyone knows now. The snakes stayed.
There is nothing else to learn. Start a game, roll the die, and find out whether the board is on your side today.
