Snakes and Ladders

Ladders or less common snakes and ladders ( in English: Snakes and Ladders, Switzerland: snakes and ladders ) is a family of board games that have been the traditional Indian game Moksha Patamu modeled. Had Moksha Patamu still a religious significance, so this is completely disappeared in the western versions. Today it is used in numerous variations, especially as a child's.

Gameplay

A conductor Game Schedule contains a chain of playing fields, leading from a start to a destination field and winds spiral or zigzag. In several places, two non- continuous range of fields connected by snakes, ladders or other drawings.

Each player starts with a character on the home field. Usually a single die is rolled in turn. Meanwhile result indicates how many fields must move forward the character. Ends her train on the initial field of a conductor, it is pre- assembled on the end panel. If it ends on a snake, it is placed on the end panel is back to square one box closer. The winner is the first to reach the target field.

In detail, there are different rules for precise achievement of the target field or the situation that the end panel of a movement is already occupied by another figure.

Variants

The game is in its basic form, a pure game without strategic elements, which is why it is mainly played by and with younger children. In the English-speaking world the original ladders and snakes are still widely used as pictures on the board, which is probably due to the still common names Snakes and Ladders. In the German -speaking world, there are, however, rare snakes, but rather alternatives such as slides. There are countless variations of the game board with different path length, shortcut number and positioning of graphical and design, often with colorful backgrounds and thematically matched abbreviations.

The basic principle of the game is often modified by about each player receives multiple game characters or individual fields are assigned special events ( 3 fields before skidding on, set a lap ... ). The Head game is also a popular base for learning games that set a thematic background or incorporate knowledge questions.

History

The first Western head of game in 1892 brought by the toy company of Frederick Henry Ayres in England with a circular game board on the market. Clockwise the game characters had to be pulled to the middle. The game had a total of 100 fields where five snakes and five ladders were located.

RH Harte developed in 1893 a variant on a rectangular field. For the same year she published a patent of a similar rectangular game board, which included only 34 individual fields.

By 1920, sons appeared at Spear & a game called "Ups and Downs! Funny and Ladders ". On the board here no more snakes, but circus scenes were with the same function.

Mathematical Analysis

In the standard rules of the ladder game there is no decision of each player, nor an interaction between the players. Therefore, the average number of litters, which is necessary to achieve the objective, empirically determined in a series of tests of an individual player. For marketed by Milton Bradley 1960 version the results of a Monte Carlo simulation have been published. Thus, a player needs on average about 39.22 throws to finish.

In said publication also the route is described to obtain the result of simulation referred to in the context without a calculation. For this purpose the Head game is modeled by an absorbing Markov chain with 100 states, which correspond to the playing fields. On this basis, the expected value is calculated 39.224 of the necessary number of throws.