Battle Ludo 2.7.7

I'm sure you've heard of Ludo or Parcheesi, that classic and fairly frustrating little board game game wherein players try to move their four pawns around the board and into their safe space before anybody else. In case you haven't then luck has it that I'm going to explain the rules so that this article won't be a simple stub.

Battle Ludo is simply a re-skin of the game and barely so, as it only shows small airplanes on player pawns. Each color can be used by the AI or by a real player, with the AI featuring three difficulty levels. Although luck trumps strategy in this game - as you will conclude by reading further, although there are some tactical decisions to be made now and then.

Ludo has a square board with boxes running along its edges. Each player starts with four pawns in one corner that he needs to move along the edges until they reach their safe spot, which is near from where they begin, but opposite to the direction of movement. So these pawns need to make almost a full 'circle' in order to reach their destination. Movement is done by rolling one six sided die, and then moving a pawn of your choice that many spaces. If you happen to land on a space of your color then the pawn advances immediately to the next one of the same color. Pawns of the same color can coexist on the same square but otherwise if you land along pawns of different colors, they go back to the starting box. Nice, right? If you happen to roll a six, you get to roll again after moving. This is an explosion. That means you get to roll again if you get another six. However, a third roll of six in succession gets all of your traveling pawns back to the starting box. Herein lies the most frustrating part and why I usually avoid playing this in real life. I rather play Dixit instead.

Still, having some brewsky on the side helps to mitigate things and can transform Parcheesi into a rather fun game. Not that I advocate for drinking and gaming, but Battle Ludo in particular is simply too random. You might get some fun out of it once or twice, but otherwise it is simply a good source to learn the rules for Parcheesi.