Let's talk about the conclusion first: This game seems to be a casual childhood memories game, but the competitiveness and balance after the revision actually have something to offer. Especially its main feature "greatly increasing the collision probability of chess pieces", which can be said to be the eukaryotic mechanism of the entire game when viewed in the current environment. 🎲
Before talking about balance, we need to go over the underlying logic of this game. The original version of Ludo is all about rolling dice, taking off, and moving around the grid, but that version basically means everyone runs their own way, and there is basically no interaction except stepping on you to go home. This version of Ludo is different. The board layout has been redesigned, the map is more compact, there are more ferries and shortcuts, and most importantly, the density of grid collision trigger points has been significantly increased. What situation has this led to?
The early laning intensity is extremely high.
Rushing to take off at the beginning is the same as rushing for the middle line in KPL. Whoever pulls both pieces out of the base first will have control of the line and can get stuck on the path you must take to take off, waiting to hit you. The probability of throwing a six in this version of the dice is still very mysterious, but on the contrary, it is this randomness that aggravates the game of "stop loss" in the mid-term. You are not betting on what will come out next time, but you are weighing whether to keep the big chess or sell the small chess in this wave. The opportunity for the disadvantaged side is that your piece that was knocked back to the base will take off again, which will bring a new round of variables. This is a typical comeback mechanism.
Let's talk about balance. In the current environment, the map spawn points at position 4 and position 1 have sequential advantages and disadvantages. Those at the back can benefit from the routes of the players in front in the early stages, but in the later stages, the cost of being knocked back to the starting point becomes lower because everyone is crowded near the decisive area. This design is quite bold to be honest. It artificially creates a "second half acceleration period" so that players who are ahead in the early stage cannot snowball without thinking. It's a bit like the Dragon Soul mechanism in LOL. You have to control resources instead of just farming the economy.
However, the current version also has a relatively big competitive problem: the birth position of a certain color chess piece and the final path to the landing area can easily form a straight line on the edge of a specific map. As long as someone blocks the middle grid, the rest will be basically useless and unable to get out. The existence of this kind of invincible position will turn some games into "seeing who can grab that position first." This is a bit out of the technical game and relies on luck. I hope the version can slightly adjust the collision determination here, or add a detour route, otherwise the BP rate of this position will be 100%. 🚩
Finally, let's talk about rhythm. This version obviously wants to compress the game time to less than ten to fifteen minutes. The increase in collisions has led to more endgames, and the endgames are the ground for a comeback. You look at being three planes ahead, but then a melee breaks out, and your mentality explodes. From an e-sports perspective, this high-random + high-collision system is actually more suitable than traditional flying chess for a casual competition with an online competition system. The enjoyment lies in the fact that you never know whether there will be a god-level operation of "one through three" in the next hand. 😂
In general, this wave of chess has upgraded childhood memories into a "family version of the game experience." If the order of birth points can be balanced in the future and the completely unsolvable positions can be reduced, it has a real chance of transforming from a friend gathering artifact into a lightweight chess board with program effects. It is recommended that you try it, especially for those who want to "kill it" after being tortured by the version. 🛫