Ludo is the modern commercial simplification of the ancient Indian cross-and-circle game Pachisi, and is now played across South Asia and far beyond. Dice results are generated with a provably fair commit–reveal scheme so no one can influence a roll.
Variant implemented
Common South Asian house rules: 4 tokens each, a 6 is needed to leave the yard and grants an extra roll, landing on an opponent sends it home, safe squares are the coloured star cells, exact count required to finish.
Board and pieces
A cross-shaped track of 52 shared squares, plus a private five-cell home column for each player and a yard for tokens not yet in play.
Setup
Four tokens each, all in the yard. Two to four players.
Turn
Roll the die, then move one token by the number rolled.
Capture and scoring
Landing on a square holding an opponent's token sends that token back to its yard — unless the square is a safe square. A capture grants another throw.
Win condition
The first player to bring all four tokens home wins.
Draw condition
None.
Special rules
A six is needed to bring a token out of the yard, and grants another throw. Three sixes in a row forfeits the turn. Each player's entry square and the star square eight steps along it are safe. Finishing requires an exact count.
Computer opponent
Greedy evaluation at Easy and Medium; flat Monte-Carlo sampling at Hard, which is the right tool for a chance game.