Best Snakes and Ladders Games to Play Free Online

Few games are easier to explain: roll the die, climb the ladders, avoid the snakes and get to 100 first. That simplicity is why snakes and ladders games still turn up at every family table, and why they work so well in a browser. Here are the best ones you can play free online, from a modern board for up to four players to old computer versions kept alive by emulation.

What makes a good snake and ladder game

Snakes and Ladders is a race decided entirely by the die. There are no choices to make, so a good digital version lives or dies on how it presents the luck. Moves should be easy to follow square by square, slides and climbs should be obvious, and it should always be clear whose turn it is.

After that, look for flexible seating. The best versions let you mix friends on one screen with computer players, so a parent and child can play together or a solo player can fill the board. House rules matter too, since families argue about whether you need an exact roll to finish and whether a 6 earns another turn.

The game itself is old. According to Wikipedia’s history of Snakes and Ladders, it began in ancient India as Moksha Patam and reached the UK in the 1890s. In the US it is best known as Chutes and Ladders, the name of the Milton Bradley version released in 1943, which swapped the snakes for playground slides.

Quick picks

If you want…	Play
Snakes and ladders online right now, on any device	Snakes and Ladders (Dinogame)
Up to 4 players with any mix of humans and computers	Snakes and Ladders (Dinogame)
A retro version with named computer characters	Hoyle Official Book of Games: Volume 3
The American chutes theme	Chutes and Ladders (DOS)
A version that uses the game’s Indian name	Snakes and Ladders (Paramapadam)
Something to learn from and remix	Scratch community projects
A race game with real decisions	Ludo (Dinogame)

1. Snakes and Ladders (play it right here on Dinogame)

Our Snakes and Ladders is a classic 100-square board with hand-drawn snakes and wooden ladders, built to run in any modern browser on a laptop, Chromebook, tablet or phone. There is no download and no account, and the board scales down to fit small phone screens.

How it plays: Choose 2, 3 or 4 players and set each seat to Human or Computer, so you can pass one device around the room or play alone against three computer opponents. The die rolls with an animation, your token hops forward one square at a time along the winding path, and ladders and snakes carry it up or down the board in a smooth climb or slide. You can pick between two original boards: Garden, with 9 ladders and 9 snakes, and Jungle, with 8 ladders and 12 snakes, some of them very long. Two house rules can be switched on or off: an exact roll to land on 100, and an extra turn on a 6. When someone wins, the results screen ranks every player, and your games played, wins and fastest win in rolls are saved in your browser.

Controls: Press the Roll button, Space or Enter, or tap the board or the die. A colored bar above the board shows whose turn it is, and the current player’s token pulses. Best for: Families, classrooms and anyone who wants a snake and ladder game that starts in one tap.

2. Hoyle Official Book of Games: Volume 3

Hoyle Official Book of Games: Volume 3 is a 1991 board game collection from Sierra On-Line. It brings six games to the screen: Snakes and Ladders, Backgammon, Yacht, Checkers, Dominoes and Pachisi. The DOS version is preserved on the Internet Archive, where you can play it in your browser through an emulator.

How it plays: At least one human has to play, and the other seats can be filled by people or by computer opponents. Those opponents are a cast of 18 characters brought back from the first Hoyle game, many of them based on other Sierra characters such as Larry Laffer. The board and moves are animated, with sound effects. Controls: Mouse, in the point-and-click style of Sierra’s early-1990s games. Best for: Retro fans who want snakes and ladders with a bit of personality at the table.

3. Chutes and Ladders (DOS)

The Internet Archive’s MS-DOS library includes an early PC Chutes and Ladders game, with a GameTek logo on its title screen. It runs in the browser through DOSBox emulation, so there is nothing to install.

How it plays: This is the American take on the board, with chutes in place of snakes and a checkered board drawn in early PC color graphics. The game opens by asking you to choose a speed from 1 to 6 before play begins. The rules are the familiar ones: land at the bottom of a ladder to climb, land at the top of a chute to slide down. Best for: Anyone curious how the chutes and ladders game looked on an old family PC.

4. Snakes and Ladders (Paramapadam)

This DOS version, made by Damodaran Ramani and Krishna Kumar Sureshbabu and dated 2004 on the Internet Archive, carries the subtitle Paramapadam, one of the regional Indian names for the game. Like the other DOS entries here, it plays in the browser through DOSBox emulation.

How it plays: It opens with a colorful blocky title screen featuring a ladder, a snake and a small figure, then goes into the standard race to the top of the board. It is a small hobby project rather than a commercial release, which is part of its charm. Best for: Players interested in the game’s Indian roots and in fan-made DOS software.

5. Snakes and Ladders for the TRS-80 MC-10 (1982)

In the early 1980s, many people got their games by typing in program listings from books and magazines. This Snakes and Ladders, credited to John Phipps and Trevor Toms and dated 1982, was adapted from its published source code for the TRS-80 Micro Color Computer, known as the MC-10. The Internet Archive’s software library runs it in the browser with an MC-10 emulator.

How it plays: The board is a strip of colored squares at the top of the screen, and the game reports each move in text, such as which square a player moves to and how many throws they have taken. You press Enter to throw the dice. Loading it takes a few steps, since you start the emulated tape and then type RUN, and the archive page lists the exact keys. Controls: Keyboard. Best for: Retro computing fans who enjoy seeing a board game squeezed into a few kilobytes.

6. Snakes and Ladders by Jim Gerrie (MC-10 homebrew)

Jim Gerrie has written many new games for the MC-10, and his Snakes and Ladders is a modern homebrew made for the BASIC 10-Liners coding contest, where every game has to fit in ten lines of BASIC. It also runs on the Internet Archive through the same MC-10 emulator.

How it plays: Despite the size limit, it draws a full graphical board with blocky ladders and winding snakes in bright green, orange and teal. You load it the same way as the 1982 version above, from an emulated tape. Controls: Keyboard. Best for: Programmers and anyone who likes seeing how much fits into ten lines of code.

7. Scratch community projects

Scratch, the free block-based coding site created at the MIT Media Lab, hosts many shared Snakes and Ladders projects made by its users, including two-player pass-and-play versions. Search Scratch for “snakes and ladders” and you will find plenty to try in the browser.

How it plays: Quality varies, since most of these are school or hobby projects, but the best ones have full 100-square boards, animated dice and working snakes and ladders. Every Scratch project lets you look inside at its code blocks and remix it, which makes this a great follow-up for a child who has just finished a game. Controls: Usually mouse clicks or a single key to roll. Best for: Kids learning to code and teachers looking for a classroom project.

8. Ludo (a step up on Dinogame)

When pure luck starts to wear thin, Ludo is the natural next game. It comes from the same family of Indian race games as Snakes and Ladders, but you move four tokens instead of one, so every roll asks you to choose. Our Ludo runs in the browser alongside Snakes and Ladders.

How it plays: Each player races four tokens around the board and into their home column. Landing on an opponent’s token sends it back to start, which gives the game the same sudden reversals as a long snake, only this time someone chose to do it to you. Best for: Families who have outgrown Snakes and Ladders but still want a fast dice game.

Tips for a better game

• Agree the house rules first. Exact roll to finish and extra turn on a 6 are the two rules people disagree on most. Settle them before the first roll.
• Expect long games with exact finishing. Needing an exact number near the top can add several turns, especially with snakes near square 100.
• Use the computer seats. A full four-player board is more fun than a duel, so fill empty seats with computer players.
• Count squares with young players. The game is a good way to practice counting and number order, since the path winds back and forth.

Frequently asked questions

Can I play snakes and ladders online for free?

Yes. Our Snakes and Ladders is free in any modern browser with no account, and the DOS and MC-10 versions on the Internet Archive are free to play through in-browser emulation. Scratch projects are free too.

Is Chutes and Ladders the same as Snakes and Ladders?

Yes, it is the same traditional race game. Chutes and Ladders is the name of the American version first published by Milton Bradley in 1943, which uses chutes instead of snakes. The rules are the same.

Can I play snakes and ladders against the computer?

Yes. Our version lets you set any seat to Computer, so you can play one human against up to three computer players. Hoyle Official Book of Games: Volume 3 also has computer opponents.

Is there any strategy in Snakes and Ladders?

No. Every move is decided by the die, so the game is pure luck. That is why it suits young children and mixed ages, and why families who want choices often move on to Ludo.

How many players can play snakes and ladders?

The board game is usually played by 2 to 4 players, though more can join with extra tokens. Our version supports 2, 3 or 4 players, each human or computer.

Roll the die

The best snakes and ladders games keep the old race simple and make the luck fun to watch. Start with our board for a quick family game, then try a retro version on the Internet Archive for a look at how the game first reached home computers. And when you want something with no dice at all, the Chrome Dino game is one jump away.