Computer Science Department
Implementation of an AI Driven Ludo
Henry Malm
In 1896, a westernized version of Pachisi was published in England under the name Ludo (Latin for "I play")" . It is believed that Ludo is a descendant of Pachisi, an ancient Indian royal game. Ludo has evolved over the course of time and thus there are currently various variations in the way the game is played. The main objective of this project is to implement the Ghanaian version of Ludo that has been in existence in my home country. To this end, the project involves the design and implementation of an AI driven two player game of Ludo as played in Ghana. Ludo is a board game made up of two to up to four players. At the start of the game, each player chooses the color by which they will be represented in the game. Each player has four tokens and the aim of the game is to travel round the board with your tokens by taking turns in rolling a die. The first player to move each one of their tokens from the starting point to home (safety) wins the game. The Ghanaian Ludo board is divided into four color groupings; Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. The board looks like a cross with each arm of the cross colored differently. Each arm of the cross is divided into several small boxes that tokens of a player move along on. Each arm of the cross is divided into three columns with six rows in each column. Five of the six rows in the center column are colored Red, Blue, Green or Yellow. This represents the home (safety) color for that player. Similarly, the other three arms of the cross are divided up in the same manner and however, five of the six rows of the middle column of each arm are colored differently. At the centre of the cross is a big square where all the colors intersect. This square is called the Home (safety). The board is divided into four color groupings; Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Below is a snap shot of a Ghanaian Ludo board