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Ludo 3.11a

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I don't exactly know how popular the game of Ludo is, however, at least here in India and Pakistan it seems to be one of the best known board games. Unfortunately, when I searched for it in the Internet, it was nowhere to be found. What was in abundance is 'Snake Ludo', which is a simpler counterpart of the original Ludo. That is why I took up this project. I really enjoyed creating it, and hope that you will enjoy just as much playing it!

Rules of the game

I will try to briefly explain the basic rules of the game.

1. The game can be played by upto four players. Each player starts with four counters in the nests. The players take turns to throw the die in clockwise direction.
2. A player must throw a six to launch a single counter. Throwing a six also endows the player with a bonus throw! When the player has multiple throws in hand, he might play them in any possible order. Also, if a player throws 3 consecutive sixes, he will be penalized and the sixes will be discarded! Life is rarely fare.
3. To launch a counter (after a six), just click on it, and then click on the position marked by a Star, which the arrow in the nest points at.
   Oh yes! And a player cannot launch or move his opponents' counter with his dice throw. (And with that I hope to have eliminated all possibilities of misunderstanding the rules...)
4. The counters can be moved in clockwise direction along the board. The objective is to move all your counters inside the Home in the center of the board (before your opponents). To do that, a counter has to complete almost a full revolution, but instead of coming back to its launching star, it should take the path along the curled arrow towards its home. You need an exact throw to get a counter home. You are awarded a bonus throw for moving a counter home!
   Warning: If after completing a revolution you carelessly miss the way home no mercy will be shown, and you will have to complete one more revolution! (That is, unless you miss again, when you will have to complete one more revolution. (That is, unless... ))
5. This rule is to make your way home more competitive. If your counter lands on your opponent's counter, that will knock off the opponent's counter and send it back to its nest! You will also be awarded a bonus throw. However, this rule doesn't apply for if your opponent's counter is on a Star marked place.
6. If you form a double by landing a counter on another, some special rules apply to them.
   1. Opponents' single counters cannot jump over your double. To get past the double they must first land on it. And landing a single on a double will not knock the doubles off to nest.
   2. If you have an even numbered dice throw, you can move the double as a single block but they will move only half as much the throw. If your double lands on your opponents' double, they knock off both the counters at one go (unless they happen to be on a Star marked cell)!

Hope you enjoy it!

The Ludo program lets you customize many parameters of the rules. Just try your hand at 'Options > Game Options'. You can drastically change the game rules from here - for example you can change the objective to 'Elimination Game', where reset counters are discarded instead of sending them back to nest. Winner is decided by the number of counters successfully reaching home.

And remember that there are many more things to explore! I am not going to try to explain all the features here, that will take out all the fun of discovering them yourself. Though, you should not have any problems since I tried to make it as intuitive as possible...

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