What is Team Ludo?
In team play, four or six players form teams of two, and partners sit opposite each other. With four players, Red and Green play against Blue and Yellow. With six, on the six-armed board, three teams play: Red and Yellow, Blue and Purple, Green and Orange. Team play is not offered with two, three or five players. Each player still rolls for and moves only their own tokens, and the turn passes round the table as usual.
Partners are on the same side. They never capture each other, and a token may share a square with its partner's tokens. A token that lands on a square holding opposing tokens captures every one of them that is not safe.
In the standard game the first player with all four tokens home wins and the game ends. Here, a player who brings all four tokens home has finished: they make no more moves, and their turns are skipped, even a bonus roll earned by the finishing move. The game goes on until both partners of one team have finished, and that team wins together.
A fast player is worth nothing until their partner arrives too, so team play rewards helping. A token can sit behind a partner's token to threaten anyone who catches it, and both partners can hunt the token of the opponent who is furthest ahead.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Ludo | Team Ludo |
|---|---|---|
| Players | Standard Ludo2 to 6, each playing alone. | Team Ludo4 players in two teams (Red and Green against Blue and Yellow), or 6 in three teams (Red and Yellow, Blue and Purple, Green and Orange). |
| Partners | Standard LudoNone. | Team LudoThe players sitting opposite each other. Each still moves only their own tokens. |
| Sharing a square | Standard LudoA token that lands on an opponent's token captures it. | Team LudoA token never captures its partner's tokens and may stand on the same square as them. |
| Captures | Standard LudoLanding on a square sends one opposing token there back to its yard. | Team LudoLanding on a square sends every opposing token there back to its yard, unless it is safe. |
| How to win | Standard LudoThe first player with all four tokens home wins. | Team LudoThe first team whose two players both have all four tokens home wins together. |
| A player who has finished | Standard LudoThe game is over. | Team LudoMakes no more moves; their turns are skipped until their partner finishes too. |
History
Ludo is played by two, three or four players, each playing alone, without partnerships. Pachisi, the Indian game it comes from, is different: it is usually played by four players in two teams, one with yellow and black pieces and the other with red and green, so partnerships are as old as the family of games itself.
Partnership play survives in some later Ludo traditions, such as a four-player Danish variant called Partners, in which the players compete in pairs, and an African variant in which partners sitting opposite each other may exchange their numbers. Team play here keeps the essentials those variants share: partners sit opposite, they are on the same side, and the pair wins or loses together. Partners do not exchange rolls.