The board game everyone grows up with — and the descendant of an Indian race game older than most empires. Roll, run, and send your rivals back where they came from.
The goal
Bring all four of your pieces around the board and into the centre. The first player to get all four home wins.
How to play
- Roll. Click the glowing die in the panel. Whatever it shows is how far one of your pieces moves this turn.
- Get out of the yard. Your pieces start in the corner. Only a six brings one out onto your start square — and every six earns you another roll.
- Race clockwise. All pieces travel the same 52-cell loop, then turn off into their own coloured home column.
- Hunt and be hunted. Landing exactly on an enemy piece sends it all the way back to its yard. The same can happen to you.
- Finish exactly. A piece needs an exact roll to reach the centre. A roll that would overshoot cannot be used at all.
Controls
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Glowing die | It is your turn — click it and watch it rattle. A six lets you roll again. |
| Gold pulsing ring | A piece you may move with this roll. Click it. |
| Green preview ring | Hover a highlighted piece to see which cell it would land on. |
| Star cells | Safe ground: pieces standing there can never be captured. |
In the side panel you can choose one, two or three computer opponents, set the difficulty, follow the event list, toggle the sound and reopen the rules. You play Blue, starting from the bottom-left corner.
Strategy
- Spend your sixes wisely. A six can bring out a fresh piece or race an existing one. Early on, bring pieces out — pieces in the yard win nothing.
- Spread your forces. Two or three pieces on the track give you a choice for every roll. With only one piece out, bad rolls are simply wasted.
- Count the danger zone. Any enemy within six cells behind you can hit you next turn. After moving, glance backwards.
- Capture with care. Sending an enemy home is worth a lot, but not if your capturing piece then sits exposed deep in enemy territory.
- Don't hoard at the door. Pieces waiting near your home column are tempting targets. A piece inside the column can never be touched again.
Want the deeper game?
The full Ludo guide has the board explained with diagrams, the six squares in front of an enemy token that are the only dangerous ones, what the odds of rolling a six really do to your opening, and how the rules differ between Ludo, Parcheesi and Mensch ärgere Dich nicht.
About the game
Ludo descends from Pachisi, the great Indian cross-and-circle race game. The Mughal emperor Akbar had life-sized courts built at Fatehpur Sikri, with servants in coloured costumes moving across giant marble squares as the pieces. The simplified version was patented in England in 1896 as Ludo, Latin for "I play", and went on to conquer the world under a dozen different names.
Try the original
Pachisi is playable here too, and it is a different game rather than a fancier Ludo. Pieces start in the middle of a cross-shaped board and travel outward before going round. Movement comes from six cowrie shells, which give 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 and 25 — and never a 1, which changes every endgame. Four players form two partnerships. And no piece of yours may come home until your side has captured an enemy, so a player who only runs away cannot win.
You can also play it with up to three friends: open a table, send them the link, and they take a seat as soon as they open it — no account, no download, and empty seats are covered by the computer until people arrive.
If you want the differences laid out properly first, read Pachisi vs Ludo.
Play it away from the screen
Box in the loft, or one pawn short? The printable Ludo board puts the full cross on one sheet, sixteen pawns to cut out on a second and the rules on a third — in classic colours, a muted version, or outlines only for a class set. All you have to find is a die.
