Snakes and ladders, or
Chutes and ladders, is a classic children's
board gameA board game is a game in which counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board"...
. It is played between 2 or more
playerA player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
s on a playing board with numbered grid squares. On certain squares on the grid are drawn a number of "ladders" connecting two squares together, and a number of "snakes" or "chutes" also connecting squares together. The size of the grid (most commonly 8×8, 10×10 or 12×12) varies from board to board, as does the exact arrangement of the chutes and the ladders: both of these may affect the duration of game play. As a result, the game can be represented as a state absorbing
Markov chainIn mathematics, a Markov chain, named after Andrey Markov, is a random process where all information about the future is contained in the present state . To be more exact, the process has the Markov property, meaning that future states depend only on the present state, and are independent of past...
.
The game was sold as
Snakes and ladders in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
before
Milton BradleyMilton Bradley , an American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company....
introduced the basic concept in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as
Chutes and ladders, an "improved new version of ... England's famous indoor sport." Its simplicity and the see-sawing nature of the contest make it popular with younger children, but the lack of any skill component in the game makes it less appealing for older players.
History
Snakes and Ladders
originated in India as a game based on morality called Vaikuntapaali or Paramapada Sopanam (the ladder to salvation). This game made its way to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and was eventually introduced in the United States of America by game pioneer
Milton BradleyMilton Bradley , an American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company....
in 1943.
The game was played widely in ancient
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
by the name of Moksha Patamu, the earliest known Jain version Gyanbazi dating back to 16th century. The game was called "Leela" - and reflected the
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
consciousness around everyday life. Impressed by the ideals behind the game, a newer version was introduced in Victorian England in 1892, possibly by John Jacques of Jacques of London.
Moksha Patamu was perhaps invented by Hindu spiritual teachers to teach children about the effects of good deeds as opposed to bad deeds. The ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith, humility, etc., and the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder, theft, etc. The moral of the game was that a person can attain salvation (
MokshaIn Indian religions, Moksha or Mukti , literally "release" , is the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth or reincarnation and all of the suffering and limitation of worldly existence after realization of God...
) through performing good deeds whereas by doing evil one takes rebirth in lower forms of life (Patamu). The number of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that treading the path of good is very difficult compared to committing sins. Presumably the number "100" represented Moksha (Salvation).
The squares of virtue on the original game are Faith (12), Reliability (51), Generosity (57), Knowledge (76), Asceticism (78); the squares of evil are Disobedience (41), Vanity (44), Vulgarity (49), Theft (52), Lying (58), Drunkenness (62), Debt (69), Rage (84), Greed (92), Pride (95), Murder
(73) and Lust (99).
Playing
Each player starts with a token in the starting square (usually the "1" grid square in the bottom left corner, or simply, the imaginary space beside the "1" grid square) and takes turns to roll a single
dieA die or dice is a small polyhedral object, usually cubic, used for generating random numbers or other symbols...
to move the token by the number of squares indicated by the die roll, following a fixed route marked on the gameboard which usually follows a
boustrophedonBoustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions...
(ox-plow) track from the bottom to the top of the playing area, passing once through every square. If, on completion of this move, they land on the lower-numbered end of the squares with a "ladder", they can move their token up to the higher-numbered square. If they land on the higher-numbered square of a pair with a "snake" (or chute), they must move their token down to the lower-numbered square.
A player who rolls a 6 with their die may, after moving, immediately take another turn; otherwise, the play passes to the next player in turn. If a player rolls three 6s on the die, they return to the beginning of the game and may not move until they roll another 6. The winner is the player whose token first reaches the last square of the track.
A variation exists where a player must roll the exact number to reach the final square (hence winning). Depending on the particular variation, if the roll of the die is too large the token remains where it is.
Specific editions
The most widely known edition of
Snakes and Ladders in the United States is
Chutes and Ladders from
Milton BradleyThe Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States and in 1987 it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
(which was purchased by the game's current distributor
HasbroHasbro is a U.S.-based, multinational toy and boardgame company. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States. The majority of its products, however, are manufactured overseas.-History:In 1923, two brothers—Henry...
). It is played on a 10×10 board, and players advance their pieces according to a spinner rather than a die. The theme of the board design is
playgroundA playground or play area is an area designed for children to play, indoors or outdoors.Modern playgrounds often have recreational equipment such as the see-saw, merry-go-round, swingset, slide, jungle gym, chin-up bars, sandbox, spring rider, monkey bars, overhead ladder, trapeze rings,...
equipment--children climb ladders to go down chutes. The artwork on the board teaches a
moralityMorality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief concerning matters of what is moral or immoral...
lesson, the squares on the bottom of the ladders show a child doing a good or sensible deed and at the top of the ladder there is an image of the child enjoying the reward. At the top of the chutes, there are pictures of children engaging in mischievous or foolish behavior and the images on the bottom show the child suffering the consequences. There have also been many pop culture versions of the game produced in recent years, with graphics featuring such characters as
Dora the ExplorerDora the Explorer is an American animated television series that is carried on the Nickelodeon cable television network. A pilot episode for the series aired in 1999, and Dora the Explorer became a regular series in 2000. The show was created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh, Rick Velleu and Eric...
and
SpongeBob SquarePantsSpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series and media franchise. It is currently Nickelodeon's highest rated show, the most distributed property of MTV Networks, and among Nicktoons Network's most-watched shows...
.
In Canada the game has been traditionally sold as
Snakes and Ladders, and produced by the
Canada Games CompanyCanada Games was a Canadian games manufacturing company based in Brampton, Ontario, before moving elsewhere in the province to Concord. Its slogan was "The Best in Fun from Canada Games."...
. Several Canadian specific versions have been produced over the years, including version substituting
TobogganA toboggan is a simple sled that is a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people down a hill or other slope for recreation. Designs vary from simple, traditional models to modern engineered composites...
runs for the snakes. With the demise of the Canada Games Company,
Chutes and Ladders produced by Milton Bradley/Hasbro has been gaining in popularity.
The most common in the United Kingdom is
Spear's Games'J. W. Spear and Sons was a significant manufacturer of board games during the 20th century. The company was registered in Fürth, near Nuremberg, Germany in 1879 producing goods such as table mats, photo frames and waste-paper baskets...
edition of
Snakes and Ladders, played on a 10x10 board where a single die is used.
During the early 1990s in South Africa,
Chutes and Ladders games made from cardboard were distributed on the back of egg boxes as part of a promotion.
Mathematics of the game
Any version of Snakes and Ladders can be represented exactly as a
Markov chainIn mathematics, a Markov chain, named after Andrey Markov, is a random process where all information about the future is contained in the present state . To be more exact, the process has the Markov property, meaning that future states depend only on the present state, and are independent of past...
, since from any square the odds of moving to any other square are fixed and independent of any previous game history. The Milton Bradley version of
Chutes and Ladders has 100 squares, with 19 chutes and ladders. A player will need an average of 39.6 spins to move from the starting point, which is off the board, to square 100. The game can be won in as few as 7 rolls.
In the book
Winning Ways the authors show how to treat Snakes and Ladders as an
impartial gameIn combinatorial game theory, an impartial game is a game in which the allowable moves depend only on the position and not on which of the two players is currently moving, and where the payoffs are symmetric...
in
combinatorial game theoryCombinatorial game theory is a mathematical theory that studies two-player games which have a position in which the players take turns changing in defined ways or moves to achieve a defined winning condition. CGT does not study games of chance...
even though it is very far from a natural fit to this category. To this end they make a few rule changes such as allowing any player to move
any counter
any number of spaces, and declaring the winner to be the one who gets the
last counter home. This version, which they call
Adders-and-Ladders, involves more skill than does the original game.
External links
- Hasbro's official Chutes and Ladders page
- Mathematical analysis of Chutes and Ladders
- Jain version of Snakes and Ladders explained in an interactive demonstration hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852, and has since grown to now cover some and 145 galleries...
- Leela, the Game of Knowledge, Hindu
A Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
version
- Shatranj Irfani Indian Sufi version XIX century
- Snakes Ladders software gameSnakes & Ladders software game