Foreword

I suppose many would consider this review rather incomplete, but I'd rather focus on the meat and potatoes of this game. And that meat and potatoes is Snakes & Ladders. After all, the main goal of this game is to herd the player into an inescapable purple room where your forced to either give up or play Snakes & Ladders until you die. As such, I really don't feel a need to cover any other aspect of this game.

Snakes & Ladders


I'll admit that I find this a difficult game to review. Partially because it's so short and partially because I'm finding it really difficult to find the right words to explain why Superstroke or bicfarmer's attempts to improve upon Snakes & Ladders is both a blessing and a curse. Though, I suppose I should largely focus on that noose that chokes the life out of this game and leaves it a
soulless corpse swaying in the wind.



For starters, it's clear that neither developer fully tested how powerful/useful the various items are in this game. If they had, they would have realized that fixed dice is so ungodly powerful that it shouldn't even exist. This is because fixed dice adds a massive consistency booster to any strategy you could deploy in this game. As such, it's pretty easy to come up with a combo of moves that can beat this game in as little as six rolls. Though the ideal version of this strategy is based upon eight rolls if you wish to remove any shot of sliding down a snake when you go for your final few rolls. And while this strategy can be blocked if your opponent has access to swap, draws a lucky card, or you suffer from a bad roll or two early on. The odds of that happening are rather low. As such, the game largely devolves into a rather boring series of calculated moves.

In a way, I suppose this game appeals to those that learned the wrong lessons from "The Mighty Ducks". For those that took to heart the words of Coach Riley and chant to themselves every night, "Because it's not worth winning if you can't win big!".

As for me, I feel like the bulk of the game's items and the few cards that I've seen largely add to the game, but those fixed dice absolutely strip this game of it's soul. After all, the soul of Snakes & Ladders is a game about random chance, it's a game where you pray that lady lucky will look down upon you and smile fondly. Or she may look down upon you and decide to show you just how cruel she can be. And these shifts in her mood add to the ebb and flow of the game. That feeling that nothing is truly settled until that final roll of the dice.

The Ideal Strategy

I suppose, this doesn't really add to the review, but I figured I'd explain how to reliably beat this game's version of Snakes & Ladders. At least in it's current incarnation.

Step 01: Buy 2 Fixed Dice & a Shield Dice at the start of the game
Step 02: Make your way to square 11 - 16
Step 03: Use on your fixed dice and land on Square 17
Step 04: If it took you three moves to make it to squares 11 - 16, then buy a shield and play it.
Step 05: Use a fixed dice and make your way to Square 81
Step 06: Use another shield
Step 07: Roll one last time if you landed on square 99 on your last roll