How does the Ladder Game work?
Write the players' names at the top of the vertical lines and the results at the bottom. Start at a name, go down, and cross over every time you meet a rung. Where you end up is that player's result. This page draws the whole thing for you.
The game is known as Amidakuji in Japan and as ghost leg in English, a translation of its Chinese name. In Korea it is called sadari tagi, ladder climbing. Pick 2 to 12 players. The rungs start hidden under paper, and when you tap a name a line in that player's color travels down the path and paints the result it reaches.
Is an online ladder draw fair?
Yes. This ladder first decides who lands where uniformly at random, then draws rungs that produce exactly that result. No matter which line you start from, every result has the same chance.
A hand drawn ladder with only a few rungs tends to drop people near the line they started on, which quietly favors some spots. This one is built to avoid that bias, and thousands of test runs for every player count came out evenly spread.
Why does every name get a different result?
Because each rung only swaps the places of two neighboring lines. However many swaps you make, no two players can end up in the same slot and no slot is left empty, so names and results always pair up one to one.
- One result per player: there are as many result slots as players, and everyone lands in a different one.
- Rungs join neighbors only: no rung skips over a line.
- No rungs side by side: a line never has rungs on both sides at the same height, so the path is never ambiguous.
- Always downward: you must cross every rung you meet and you never climb back up.
What can you decide with it?
Anything a group needs to split fairly: chores, turns, lunch, teams. Common result sets fill in with one tap.
| Preset | Results it fills in |
|---|---|
| Winner / Blank | One Winner, the rest Blank |
| Order 1 to N | 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on |
| Chores | Dishes, Trash, Vacuum, Laundry, Groceries, the rest Free |
| Lunch menu | Pizza, Burger, Sushi, Tacos and more, up to 12 |
| Speaking order | Talk 1, Talk 2 and so on |
| Team A / B | Half Team A, half Team B |
| One penalty | One Penalty, the rest Safe |
You can edit any slot after picking a preset. Each slot holds up to 8 characters.
Tips for a better draw
- Pick names while the cover is on. When nobody can see the paths, everybody trusts the result.
- Send players down one at a time. Watching the line travel together is half the fun.
- Shuffle before you start, not after. Reshuffling once results are out is no longer fair.
- Finish with Show all. The rest of the players go down in turn and you get a table of every name and result.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: tap a name tag to start, tap the paper to reveal the ladder, tap a filled result to see who landed there.
- Keyboard: ← → to choose a name, Enter or Space to go, number keys 1 to 9 and 0 to start a line directly, A to show all, R to shuffle, C to toggle the cover, Esc for settings.
Names and results stay in this browser and are only sent anywhere if you choose Share result yourself. The shared link never contains any names.