How it works
Ludo needs four people and almost never has them. That is the problem this version solves: any seat nobody claims is filled by a bot, so a game starts whether four of you turned up or one.
- Create a room and share the invite link.
- Up to four play. Everyone beyond the fourth becomes a spectator and can still watch and chat.
- Roll a 6 to move a token out of your base. Sixes also earn another roll, and the rolls add up into one total to spend.
- Race all four tokens home. First player to get every token into the centre wins the round.
Playing alone? Press Start on your own and three bots take the other seats. They chase captures and bring tokens home when they can, but they are beatable on purpose.
The rules we play by
Ludo has as many house rules as it has households, so it is worth being explicit about which ones are in force here:
- A 6 gets you out. Tokens leave base only on a six, landing on your own coloured start square.
- Landing on an opponent sends them home. Their token goes back to base and starts again.
- Eight safe squares. The four coloured start squares and the four stars. A token standing on one cannot be captured, which stops anyone being farmed the moment they leave base.
- Sixes bank and add up. Roll a 6 and you roll again, and the rolls add together. Roll 6 then 4 and you have 10 to spend, moved as one go rather than two separate moves.
- Extra turns. A capture or getting a token home earns you a fresh turn. Sixes do not, because they have already paid out as extra rolls.
- Three sixes forfeits the turn and the banked total with it. Without that rule a hot streak runs forever while everyone else watches.
- You must finish exactly. Overshooting the last square is not a legal move, so the final stretch is a waiting game.
One thing we have deliberately left out for now: blocking, where two of your tokens on one square stop opponents passing. It changes the game considerably and is worth adding on purpose rather than by accident.
Scoring
- Capture an opponent: 30 points each
- Get a token home: 60 points
- Win the round: 150 points
Scores feed the same leaderboard as every other Drawblins game, so a Ludo round and a drawing round can share one running scoreboard in a single session.
Nobody gets to stall the board
Every roll and every move has a 20 second timer. Run out and the server plays a reasonable move for you rather than skipping your turn, so an idle player still makes progress and the board keeps moving. If someone disconnects, a bot takes their seat and the round continues.
Why play it here
Most online Ludo wants an app install, an account, and an ad between every round. This one is a link. It also shares the room with Draw & Guess, Tic Tac Toe and five other games, so you can switch without anyone re-joining.
For something even quicker between rounds, Tic Tac Toe runs in the same room, and this guide covers which games hold up above 20 people.