The history of Ludo

Pachisi: the royal game of India

Ludo is a simplified, Victorian version of pachisi, the cross-and-circle race game that has been played in India for well over a thousand years. Pachisi is played on a cross-shaped cloth, with cowrie shells thrown instead of dice, usually by four players in two partnerships.

Its name comes from pachīs, Hindi for twenty-five, the highest throw available. The game appears in Indian art and literature for centuries, and there is a famous account — repeated everywhere, hard to verify in detail — that the Mughal emperor Akbar had a life-sized pachisi court laid out at Fatehpur Sikri, with people as the pieces.

The essential ingredients were all present long before Europe saw them: a cross-shaped track, four tokens each, a safe-square system, capture by landing, and a home column that only your own colour may use.

1896: the British patent

British colonial contact brought pachisi to England, where it was adapted for the Victorian drawing room. In 1896 a version was patented under the name Ludo — Latin for "I play" — with the cowrie shells replaced by a cubic die in a cup, and the rules trimmed to what a child could follow.

The simplifications defined the modern game:

• One die instead of shells, so throws are uniform and the arithmetic is trivial.
• Four tokens each, no partnerships required.
• A fixed rule that a six both releases a token and grants another roll.

The Royal Navy adopted a version called Uckers, still played aboard ship with its own elaborate rules and a tradition of fiercely enforced local variations.

Parcheesi, Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, and the global spread

Every large European and American market got its own version, each convinced it was the original.

• Parcheesi was trademarked in the United States in the late 1860s and became one of the best-selling American board games of all time. It keeps two dice and more of pachisi's tactical richness.
• Mensch ärgere Dich nicht — "Man, don't get annoyed" — was created in Germany around 1907 and published in 1914, and became a phenomenon: millions of sets were sent to German soldiers during the First World War. It remains one of Germany's best-known games.
• Parchís in Spain, Fia in Sweden, Non t'arrabbiare in Italy and dozens of others follow the same pattern.

In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and much of Africa and the Middle East, Ludo never stopped being a mainstream adult game rather than a children's one — and that is where its modern digital boom came from.

The most played race game in the world

Ludo's second life has been on phones. Mobile versions — particularly in South Asia — reach audiences that dwarf almost every other board game, with online multiplayer, tournaments and streaming. It is, by a wide margin, the most played race game on earth.

The rules argument has come with it. Because every household learned slightly different house rules — extra rolls, blocks, whether you need a six to enter the home column — digital versions have had to make them options rather than rules. The game has no governing body, and probably never will.

Common questions