Snakes and ladders

The game is played by 2 or more players on a square playing board on which a 10x10 grid is drawn. The grid squares are numbered such that the bottom row is labelled "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10", the second-to-bottom row "20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11", the third "21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30" and so on until the last row - "100 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91". On this grid are drawn a number of "ladders" connecting two squares together, and a similar number of snakes also connecting squares together. There is no standard arrangement of the snakes and the ladders - they vary from board to board and are the primary basis of copyrights in commercial editions of the game such as Hasbro's Chutes and Ladders.

Each player starts with a token in the "1" grid square (in the bottom left) and rolls a single die, moving the token the number of squares (in numerical order) indicated by the die roll. If, on completion of this move, they land on the lower-numbered of the pair of squares with a "ladder", they move their token forward to the higher-numbered square. If they land on the higher-numbered square of a pair with a "snake", they must move their token back to the lower-numbered square. If they have rolled a 6 with their die, they may roll again, otherwise the play passes to the next player in turn. The winner is the player whose token reaches square 100 first.

Snakes and ladders' simplicity and the see-sawing nature of the contest make it popular with younger children, however, the lack of any skill component in the game makes it uninteresting for older players.