Ludo is the classic four-colour race game in which children make their first real tactical decisions, and it has survived for centuries because a single die roll can rescue the player in last place right up to the final turn.
Ludo at a glance
Players: 2 to 4 · Ages: 4+ · Time: 20 to 30 minutes · You need: a ludo board, 4 counters per player, one die
Be the first player to race all four of your counters around the board and home. 1. Roll a six to move a counter out of your starting yard. 2. On each turn, roll the die and move one counter that many squares clockwise. 3. Land on an opponent's counter to send it back to its yard. 4. Rolling a six earns an extra roll. 5. First player to bring all four counters up the home column wins.
Each player chooses a colour and places their four counters in the matching corner yard. Youngest player rolls first, and play passes to the left. Every player races clockwise around the same circuit, then turns up their own coloured home column, the short strip leading to the centre. Your home column is yours alone: no other player may enter it.
This is the heart of the game. If your counter lands by exact count on a square occupied by a single opposing counter, that counter is captured: it goes straight back to its owner's yard and must roll a six to come out again. You cannot capture your own colour; landing on your own counter simply stacks the two (see the block rule below).
Boards vary here, and this is where most household disputes begin, so settle it before the first roll. Many ludo boards mark certain squares with a star or a colour. The common ruling is that a counter on a marked square, including each player's own starting square, cannot be captured; an incoming counter simply may not land there. On plain boards with no markings, the traditional rule is harsher: nowhere on the main track is safe, and only the home column is beyond reach. Pick whichever your board suggests and stick to it for the whole game.
Once a counter has completed its lap, it turns up its own coloured home column towards the centre, where it cannot be captured. To reach home, the standard rule is an exact roll: if your counter is three squares from the centre, only a three will do. Roll too high and that counter stays put, though you may use the roll on another counter able to move. The first player to bring all four counters home wins. Most families play on to settle second and third, which keeps younger players at the table.
Ludo descends from Pachisi, the great Indian race game played for centuries on cross-shaped boards, a pedigree running through royal courts and village squares alike. The simplified Western version, with its single die and four-colour board, was popularised in Victorian England, where it became a fixture of the family parlour. Jaques of London, the world's oldest games company, was among the first to publish it as a family boxed game, and it has stayed in ordinary households ever since. Few games can claim a longer unbroken run of children sending each other's counters home.
Ludo occupies a special rung on the ladder of children's games. Snakes and ladders is pure luck: you roll, you move, the board decides. Ludo is the first race game that hands a child a real decision. With more than one counter on the track, every roll poses a question: bring out a fresh counter, push the leader on, or move the one in danger? That small choice is the beginning of genuine tactical thinking, the working memory and self-control workout that researchers like Adele Diamond identify as the foundation of executive function.
Alongside the decisions come quieter gains. Counting squares one at a time anchors early number sense far better than reciting numbers ever does. Waiting for a six teaches patience with genuine stakes. And capture introduces benign conflict: your counter is sent home, it stings, and thirty seconds later the game rolls on and so do you. Learning that a setback inside a game is survivable is some of the cheapest resilience training childhood offers. If your child is just starting out, our guide to first board games sets out where ludo fits in the sequence.
The box says four and up, and that is honest, with adaptations. A four-year-old can roll, count squares with a steadying finger, and grasp that home is good and being sent back is bad. What they cannot yet do is weigh four counters' fortunes at once or wait through a long string of six-less turns. So trim the game to fit:
All ludo asks for is a board, sixteen counters and one die, but there is a real difference between a flimsy fold-out and a board that sits flat while wooden counters click satisfyingly from square to square. A well-made set gets played, kept and handed down. You will find ludo among our classic board games → and our wider shelf of traditional games →, made by the same firm that first boxed the game for Victorian families.
Under standard rules, yes: each counter needs a six to leave the yard, and the six earns another roll. With young children, the kindest house rule is to start everyone with one counter already on the board.
Yes, in the standard game: a counter must enter the centre by exact count. If the roll is too big, that counter waits, and you use the roll on another counter if you can. Some families play a bounce-back variant where excess movement reflects back down the column, but exact-roll is the common ruling.
In the most widely played version, your turn ends at once and the third six counts for nothing. It is optional, so agree before you start, but it is a good rule: it stops one lucky player running away with the board.
From about four with the adaptations above: a guaranteed starter counter, two counters each, and teams. From six or seven, most children can play the full standard game and cope with the occasional trip back to the yard. Adults never really grow out of it, which is rather the secret of its longevity.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.