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.
The one to hope for is square 28, which lifts you all the way to 84. That is more than half the board in a single turn and it can decide a game early. Square 80 is the other big one: it takes you straight to 100, which is an instant win.
Land on a snake’s head and you slide down to its tail. Same idea in reverse, and just as final.
The square everyone learns to dread is 87. It drops you to 24, wiping out sixty-three squares of progress in one roll. Then there is 98, which sends you back to 78 when you were two squares from winning. Both 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 98 needing a two 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 and 98 are traps makes the last stretch tense in a good way, and knowing 28 is the big ladder gives everyone something to hope for early on. That knowledge will not change your rolls, but it makes the game far more fun to watch.
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.
