Design a ludo game
PremiumMachine codingMedium
- Board game rules
- Roll and move phases
- Capture rules
Quick answer
This machine coding interview question asks you to design a ludo game. Aim for a design that meets its requirements at the stated scale, then explain its main components, data flow and trade-offs. Interviewers want to see how you scope the problem, size it and defend each choice.
The problem
Build a Ludo game engine for 2 to 4 players, like the board game many families play and its popular phone versions. Each player races four tokens around a shared track into their home column. The hard parts are the six and capture rules, mapping each player's path onto the shared board and testing dice-driven play.
What must a ludo game do?
- Board: 52 shared squares numbered 0–51. Start squares are RED 0, GREEN 13, YELLOW 26, BLUE 39. Each token's own position is yard, 0–50 on the track, 51–55 in its home column, or 56 for home.
- Turn flow: roll() returns the dice value and the legal moves; move(token) moves one of them. Moving before rolling, rolling twice or moving an illegal token is rejected.
How well must it do it?
- Deterministic tests: Dice come from an injected source: seeded random in play, a scripted list in tests.
- Clear turn phases: The engine is always in AWAITING_ROLL or AWAITING_MOVE for one player.
What scale should you design for?
Use these numbers in your estimates.
The scale numbers unlock with this questionUnlock
Key concepts
- Board game rules
- Roll and move phases
- Capture rules
- Seeded dice
- Game state
- House rules
How you’ll practise
- Requirements
- Entities and interfaces
- Core implementation
- Edge cases and tests
- Extensions
- Wrap-up
Lala, personalized to you, gives a hint when you ask and reviews your design when you are ready.
What do interviewers look for?
In any machine coding design round.
- Clarifies the requirements before drawing anything
- Uses a few numbers that actually change the design
- Draws a clear path from the client to storage
- Picks storage and caching with reasons, not by habit
- Explains what breaks first under load and how to fix it
- States trade-offs openly instead of claiming a perfect design
Questions people ask about this interview question
- Which design type is this question?
- It is a machine coding question. You design a ludo game and explain your choices the way you would in an interview.
- Is this question asked at entry level?
- It is marked Medium. Entry-level engineers can practise it, but it expects you to reason about requirements and trade-offs, not only list components.
- What should I cover first?
- Start with the requirements: what the system must do, how well it must do it and which numbers change the design. Agree on scope with the interviewer before you design anything.
- Can I practise it for free?
- It is a premium question. Sign up and unlock it once for 10 credits; it then stays unlocked. When you finish, Lala, your personalized AI mentor, can review your design for 30 credits.
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Updated · Written by the SevyDevy team