How to play Ludo

Ludo is a race game for the whole family that descends from Pachisi, a game played in India for centuries. Each player has four tokens waiting in a corner yard. You roll a die, bring tokens onto the track, send them all the way round the board and up your own coloured column to the centre. The first player to bring all four tokens home wins.

It looks like pure luck, but every roll asks you a question: which token should move? Should you bring out a new token or push one forward? Is it worth stepping into danger to capture, or should you wait on a safe square? Over many games, a player who answers these questions well wins clearly more often than one who just moves the first token they see.

How to play on skill.games

You play the cyan tokens in the bottom-left yard against the computer's green tokens in the top-right yard. You always roll first.

• Roll: tap the die when it says it is your turn.
• Move: tokens that can use the roll glow. Tap the one you want to move and it hops along the track square by square. A token that can't move shakes when tapped.
• Automatic moves: if only one token can move, it moves by itself after a moment. If none can, the turn passes.

Before each game, the settings popup lets you pick Easy, Normal or Hard. The menu button in the top-left corner pauses the game. A game in progress is saved before every roll, so you can continue it next time.

The results screen shows tokens home, captures, your 6s and moves, plus your record at that level: wins, losses, win rate and streaks.

Rules

The board. The track is a loop of 52 squares around a cross-shaped board. Each player has a start square just outside their yard and a home column of five squares leading to the centre. A token travels almost one full lap of the track from its start square, then turns up its own home column into the centre. Only you can enter your home column, so tokens there are safe.

Bringing tokens out. All four tokens begin in the yard. A token can leave the yard only when you roll a 6, and it goes onto your start square.

Moving. Each roll moves one token forward by the number shown. You choose which token, as long as the move is legal.

Rolling again.

• Rolling a 6 gives you another roll after you move.
• Capturing a token gives you another roll.
• Rolling three 6s in a row ends your turn at once, without moving on the third 6.
• Bringing a token home does not give an extra roll.

Safe squares. The four start squares and the four star squares are safe. No token can be captured there, and tokens of both sides can share them.

Capturing. If your token ends its move on a square holding a single enemy token, and that square is not safe, the enemy token is sent back to its yard. It will need another 6 to come out again.

Blocks. Two or more tokens of the same side on one square form a block. The other side cannot land on it or move past it. A token coming out of its yard onto its start square is never stopped.

Reaching home. You need the exact number to finish: a move that would go past the centre is not allowed.

Two helping hands. Both sides get the same help from the die:

• When a player has a token in its home column, the die sometimes shows exactly the number that token needs to finish.
• When a player has no tokens out on the track, a 6 is guaranteed within a few rolls, so nobody sits in the yard for ages.

Winning. The first side to bring all four tokens into the centre wins.

Strategy tips

• Count the danger zone. An enemy token from one to six squares behind yours can capture it with a single roll. Try to end your moves where no enemy token is that close behind you.
• Use safe squares as stepping stones. Stars and start squares let you wait out danger. Moving from one safe square towards the next is often better than stopping in open track.
• Pair up to build a block. Two of your tokens on the same square can't be captured and stop the computer's tokens from passing. A block just in front of an enemy token can hold it back for several turns.
• Take a capture when it hurts the most. Capturing a token that has gone far round the board costs the computer much more than catching one that just came out. Remember a capture also gives you another roll.
• Don't keep everything in the yard. With one token out, every roll must move it, even into danger. Two or three tokens out give you choices.
• Beware the computer's start square. The squares just past it are risky: a newly released token lands right behind you.
• Get into the home column. Once a token is in its home column it can never be captured, so pushing a threatened token into it is often the safest move of all.

Difficulty levels

• Easy: about half the time the computer moves a random token; otherwise it plays like Normal. It often misses captures and leaves tokens exposed.
• Normal: the computer follows a sensible checklist: bring a token out on a 6, capture when it can, finish a token, reach a safe square, run from a threat behind it, then chase your tokens.
• Hard: the computer tries every possible move and weighs the resulting position, including the chance that you hit one of its tokens on your next roll and the best reply you could make. The dice still matter, so its edge comes from many small good choices.