The rules of all five Ludo variations, in full

Ludo Vest ships five variations. Four of them are Classic with one rule changed, which is on purpose: a variation that needs a tutorial is a variation nobody plays. Everything below is the rule set the server actually enforces.

The board every variation shares

A 52-cell ring with four seats starting at cells 0, 13, 26 and 39. A token travels 51 ring cells, then turns into a six-cell home column. Internally a token's whole position is one number: 0 is base, 1 to 51 is the ring, 52 to 56 is the home column, and 57 is home.

• Sixes roll again. But three sixes in a row forfeits the turn — the anti-stalling rule, and the reason a hot streak eventually hands the dice back.
• Capturing means landing on a cell holding exactly one opponent token. It goes back to base and you take another turn.
• Safe cells are the four start cells and the four starred cells — eight in total, at ring indices 0, 8, 13, 21, 26, 34, 39 and 47. No capture ever happens on one.
• Blocks: two of your tokens on the same cell stop opponents landing there at all.
• Exact rolls enter home. An overshoot is not a legal move, so it is simply not offered.

Classic

The original game. Roll a 6 to bring a token out of base, race all four around the ring, and win by getting all four home with exact rolls. Twelve-second turns. If someone has only ever played Ludo on a physical board, this is the one that matches their memory.

Master

Every Classic rule applies, plus one: you must capture at least one opponent token before any of yours may enter the home column.

That single clause rewrites the strategy. In Classic you can sometimes win by hugging safe squares and running clean, and against cautious opponents it works. In Master that plan cannot finish the game — the board forces you into contact before it lets you close. Expect longer matches and more reversals in the last third.

Blitz

Two changes, both aimed at length. All four tokens start on the board, so nobody spends three turns fishing for a 6, and the win condition is the first token home rather than all four. The turn timer drops to 5 seconds.

It plays as a sprint with a knife-edge ending: your leading token is also the most obvious capture target on the board, and losing it at cell 48 is the entire experience of Blitz. This is the one to pick when you have five minutes.

Arrow

Classic rules, plus arrow tiles placed around the ring. Land on one and your token is launched forward to the next arrow — and launches chain, so a single move can carry a token most of the way around the board.

The interesting consequence is that distance stops being reliable. In Classic you can look at the board and know roughly who is winning. In Arrow, a token sitting eight cells behind yours is one lucky landing from being twenty ahead, so leads are worth less and the last stretch is worth more.

Team Up

Four seats, two teams: you are paired with the player sitting opposite you. The win condition is all eight tokens of one team home, and the winning pair split the prize.

• Teammates never capture each other.
• Teammates stack safely on a cell instead of forming a block against each other.
• Everything else is Classic — a 6 to leave base, exact rolls to enter home, twelve-second turns.

Team Up is the variation that most changes what the voice chat sounds like, because for the first time a bad roll is somebody else's problem too. It is also where the rule against capturing teammates has real strategic weight: you can park a token in front of your partner's runner as cover without the usual risk.

Which to pick

Two things that are true in all five

First, the dice. Whichever variation you pick, the sequence is derived from a seed the server committed to before the first roll, and the seed is revealed at the end. No variation gets its own generator and no variation gets different odds.

Second, disconnects. Your seat is held for 60 seconds and reconnecting restores the exact board. After that a bot covers your turns so the others can finish, and if you come back you take your seat straight off it. If everybody disconnects before a single roll, every stake that was actually charged is refunded — nothing was played, so nothing was won or lost.