Ludo pass and play: one screen, up to four players

Ludo pass and play means everyone shares one phone, tablet or laptop and hands it on after each turn. Courtyard Ludo on Mayavoo does exactly that for 2 to 4 people in a browser, free, with no app and no sign-up, and any empty seat can be filled by a computer player.

It is the oldest way to play Ludo on a screen, and still the least fuss. Nobody needs an account, nobody waits for an invite link, and the board sits between you like the cardboard one did.

Pass and play versus online rooms

The two modes solve different problems, so it helps to be clear which one you need.

Courtyard Ludo has no online play at all. If your group chat wants a match tonight from four different flats, use an app with online rooms instead. If the group is around one table, a single shared screen is simpler.

Setting up a shared game

1. Open Courtyard Ludo on whichever device has the biggest screen. It runs on desktop, mobile and tablet, in any orientation.
2. Decide how many people play. Two, three or four seats can be human.
3. Set the leftover seats to computer players if you want a full board. You can pick from the Tiger, the Peacock, the Monkey and the Elephant.
4. Choose a quick game if time is short. Each player then gets 2 tokens instead of 4.
5. Roll and pass. Tap the die, tap a glowing token, hand the device on.

On a laptop the keyboard works too: Space or Enter rolls, Tab or the arrows choose a token, Enter moves it. Esc or P pauses, which is handy when the snacks arrive. M mutes the sound.

Why a shared screen still works

A few things make pass and play pleasant rather than a chore:

• The rules are settled by the game. Rolling a 6 to come out, sending tokens back by landing on them, safe stars and start squares, the bonus roll for a 6 or a capture or getting home, losing the turn after three 6s, and needing an exact roll to finish are all built in. Nobody can quietly invent a house rule mid-game.
• Computer turns are readable. Bots only play legal moves and pause before each one, so the humans can see what happened. Once that feels slow, the pause menu has fast computer turns.
• Kids can join. With no account needed, it is an easy pick for a family game.

Where it lives

The game sits in the chess, cards and board games section of Mayavoo, a free site for browser games from independent creators. Signing in with Google or GitHub is optional and only adds likes and comments. Mayavoo's team plays and checks each game before it goes live, and games run in a sandboxed frame. A brief Google ad can appear as a game starts and when you leave it; there are none mid-game.

So the short version: for Ludo with the people next to you, open the page, pick seats, and start passing the phone.