A snakes and ladders game for children, offline

Serpents & Ladders is the snakes and ladders game in Games by Zaweba, and it's free and fully offline. Your red counter races three computer players from square 1 to 100, climbing ladders and sliding down serpents on the way. With no adverts, no accounts and nothing online, it's a safe game for children to play on their own.

Few games are as easy to explain to a young child. Roll the dice, move your counter, and hope for a ladder. That's all there is to it, and the three computer players mean there's always a full race even when nobody else is free to play.

How to play

Take turns rolling the dice and hopping your red counter forward. If you land at the foot of a ladder, you climb it. If you land on a serpent's head, you slide down to its tail. The first to reach square 100 wins.

There's also an exact-roll game. In that one, a roll that would take you past 100 bounces you back instead, so you need just the right number to finish. It adds a bit of suspense to the end.

The controls couldn't be simpler: click Roll the dice, or press Space or R. You'll find Serpents & Ladders on the Board games shelf.

Getting a young child started

Play the first game side by side. The title card explains the rules and controls, but reading them together and pointing at the board helps. Show the difference between a ladder (good) and a serpent's head (not so good).

Let them do the rolling. Pressing Space or clicking the button is easy for small hands, and doing it themselves makes the game feel like theirs.

Count the squares out loud. Snakes and ladders is a lovely way to practise counting and recognising numbers up to 100, and watching the counter hop helps.

Talk about luck. It's a pure luck game, so nobody is bad at it. That makes losing easier to take, and it's a gentle way to learn that some games are just chance.

Making it work on a family PC

Games by Zaweba is free software that runs offline, with everything drawn and every sound made in code on your computer. There's nothing to buy, no pop-ups and no way to talk to strangers. If you want quiet, the sound can be switched off from the bar above the game.

If a child needs to stop, Esc pauses the game, and it pauses itself if the window loses focus. F11 fills the screen, which makes the board big and bright for young eyes. A star on the tile adds the game to Favourites, so a child can find it again easily, and a grown-up can even make a desktop shortcut that opens the app straight into one game.

Other gentle games in the app

When a child is ready for something a little different, Race Home on the Board games shelf is the cross-and-circle race game with four tokens each and a 6 to get out, again against three computer players. Pairs on the Cards shelf is the classic memory game, and Noughts & Crosses is a good first strategy game. Each tile in Games by Zaweba shows plays, wins and best score, which children often enjoy watching go up.