Cooperative Snakes and Ladders: A Rule Hack That Makes the Game Fun for Everyone
Promotional snakes and ladders boards are a common giveaway for kids in Sweden, but as a game they're terrible: no decisions, and all but one player loses. This post proposes a cooperative variant where players work together to get all pawns to the finish, using a shared deck of movement cards instead of dice. The rules are simple, and an optional extension adds role-based special abilities for more variety. The author admits the roles aren't balanced but finds them fun.
But as a game, it sucks.
- bennettnate5
I have mixed feelings about cooperative board games in general. I've played a select few that blend things well, but too often it becomes an optimization problem that one or two players really fixate on and end up directing the decisions for the group as a whole, leading the others to check out.
The games I've found to get past this and remain fun for everyone retain some element of hidden knowledge between players, such as Deadwood [1] where players are cooperative in groups up until a final duel or Hanabi [2] where everyone but you knows your cards and players take turns giving strategic bits of info to get everyone's cards down in the right order.
[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/245197/deadwood-1876
- LastTrain
Snakes and Ladders is about learning social skills. That’s why who wins is random, it gives kids an experience at both. If you want to play a fun game, play something else.