Games

Our Snakes and Ladders board games are entirely handmade with special Balinese twists and flavors. The cloth board is screen printed on cotton, and the dice and tokens are carved from wood. Snakes and Ladders can be a special present for yourself or a great gift that we can send to your loved one with a personal note from you.

At the foot of the Balinese Art and Mythology version, the turtle Bedawang Nala carries the world and is accompanied by the two dragons Basuki and Anantaboga. Spiritual nirvana is represented by Mount Agung and the heavenly realm above. Other illustrations are symbols of fertility, creation, enlightenment, abundance, death, disease, disaster and knowledge. Many of these symbolic drawings are inspired by life in and around the Balinese kitchen. Available with boards dyed natural indigo, Ceriops brown, or screen-printed with natural indigo.

The Bali's Underwater World version takes us into the underwater world of Balinese artist Made Griyawan that is filled with denizens of the deep including sea snakes, sunfish, turtles and more. Roll the dice and travel up to the surface towards Bali’s magical volcanoes. Made is a master at translating local tales of his culture into paintings that continue the long legacy of Batuan style. He created this original gameboard as a standalone piece of art which was then reproduced digitally on canvas. The game comes with animal tokens and dice made from bone, hand carved by Bali artisans.

Snakes and Ladders is a simple game of chance and counting and was invented in India as a morality lesson for children, with the squares where each ladder starts representing a virtue, and the squares where each snake starts depicting a vice. Deities and heavenly realms were depicted at the top of the board while plants, animals and people were encountered through the game. The journey from first to last square represented the path to liberation, with more snakes than ladders to show that it is easier to be bad than to strive for goodness. When the game was brought to England in the 19th century it was stripped of this meaning and the numbers of snakes and ladders was balanced.