How to Make a Fully Automated Robotic Snakes and Ladders Game in Python

We all love a good game of Snakes and Ladders, don’t we? It’s a classic board game where luck plays the leading role, and rolling the dice either brings joy with a climb up a ladder or despair when you slide down a snake. But what if we automate it, with two bots playing instead of humans? Well, we can! The Python code we’ll discuss does exactly that — it solves the “problem” of needing to manually play Snakes and Ladders by letting two bots duke it out.

Of course, it’s a silly solution because it takes away the fun that comes from playing the game with friends or family. The code reduces the game to random moves, making the whole process somewhat mechanical and predictable. However, it’s an interesting way to see how programming can simulate games, and it’s also fun to watch bots roll the dice and race to the finish!

Now, let’s dive into how the code works!

All you need is a program that can process Python like Pycharm or Google Colab. I used Google Colab and will be enclosing the "Basics of Python" Colab spreadsheet for you to refer to. Now, lets begin!

Python, on its own, can accomplish very little. So, to speed things up, we import modules. I have imported 2 modules.

• random: This module is used to simulate the dice rolls, where each roll produces a number from 1 to 6.

• time: This module allows us to pause the game for a short moment after each move, so it doesn’t zoom by too quickly!

The print command at first is a friendly introduction is printed to let you know what’s about to happen. After that, we have to initialise and print the dice, the numbers on which the snakes are, and the numbers on which the ladders are, using a Python dictionary.

• dice: Represents the dice values (1 to 6).

• snake: A dictionary where each key represents a square with a snake, and the corresponding value represents the square where the snake takes the player down to.

• ladder: Another dictionary that works the opposite way. If a player lands on a key (start of the ladder), they climb up to the value (end of the ladder).

• Both player1 and player2 start at position 0 on the board. [The board exists in our mind.]

We have created each player's variable score. Now, we have to add a step counter for the user's comfort.

• A new variable step has been added to count the number of moves taken by both bots.

A dice is unpredictable, so it might take a different number of moves to beat the game, due to which, we need a loop. We also need to update the step count in the loop, to maintain the number of moves used by the bots

• This loop continues until either player1 or player2 reaches 100, which is the winning square.

• The step number increases with each round, allowing us to know how many turns were required for a bot to win. Inside the loop, the step counter increases by 1 with every round. The current step number is printed with the message "This is step <step_number>".

The following code will be inside the loop.

We start with player 1.

• This line adds a random dice roll to player1’s current position. Each roll is randomly picked from the dice (1 to 6).

Now, we have added the dice's number to the player's score. But without snakes and ladders, the game cannot be called snakes and ladders! So, we write down this code:

• If player1 lands on a square where a snake’s mouth or a ladder’s bottom exists, the code checks and adjusts the position accordingly:

• If it’s a snake, they slide down.

• If it’s a ladder, they climb up.

• If they don’t land on a snake or ladder, they just move forward normally.

• The game sends a message to inform the viewer if the bot faced a snake or ladder.

The same logic applies for Bot 2, using identical steps to check for snakes, ladders, and regular movement.

We have written player 1 and player 2's move. Now, we need to make it easier for the viewer to see the point where the next move occurs using both text and a time delay.

• After each turn, the code prints the positions of both bots and announces that the next move is coming. The time.sleep(1) pauses the game for 1 second to give it a more lifelike pace.

We break from the loop, which can be done by simply removing the indentation. The loop stops when either player reaches 100+ score. Once we reach that point, we need to check for who won or if it is a draw.

• Once a player reaches or exceeds 100, the game declares the winner. If neither wins (due to some unforeseen bug, which doesn’t really happen here), it would print “It’s a draw!”

• When a bot wins, the program also displays the number of steps it took to win, giving a sense of how long the game lasted.

And thats it!

This code is a fun little program that demonstrates how basic game logic can be coded into Python. It randomly simulates the game of Snakes and Ladders between two bots, showing how they move around the board based on dice rolls and how they interact with snakes and ladders.

While it’s entertaining to watch the bots “play,” it’s definitely a silly solution to a non-existent problem. After all, Snakes and Ladders is meant to be a fun social game, not something to be watched passively. But this code is still a great way to practice basic Python skills, working with loops, conditional statements, and random choices.

It’s a simple yet playful way to explore how automation works, even in something as lighthearted as a children’s board game!

Lastly, the link to my Google Colab document, "The Basics Of Python":

https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1JRapgvN5cfsyea6Zu8M3TeRaNvxIVjO5?usp=sharing