Blog › From Lunch Picks to Prize Draws — How to Decide Fairly with a Ladder Game

From Lunch Picks to Prize Draws — How to Decide Fairly with a Ladder Game

"What should we eat for lunch?" "Who's cleaning up this week?" "Who gets the extra ticket?" Group decisions like these come up constantly, and they're always a little awkward. Rock-paper-scissors doesn't scale past a few people, and if one person just "decides," someone always feels singled out. What you need is a method everyone can trust — and the ladder game (Amidakuji) is exactly that. It's the classic ladder-drawing game where no one can predict in advance which outcome they'll land on.

Simple App Pro's Ladder Game tool lets you build a ladder and reveal results right in your browser — no sign-up, no app install. Everything runs locally, so nothing is sent to a server.

Just enter participants, outcomes, and a number

Set the number of players, then type in each participant's name and the outcome they might land on — a prize, "win/lose," a lunch option, a chore, anything. Both fields accept up to 30 characters, so specific phrases like "loser does the dishes" work fine. If you only need a single winner, use "Auto-fill: 1 winner" to fill the rest with "Miss" automatically.

Build the ladder, then click a name to reveal

Click "Build the Ladder" to generate a random ladder layout. Then click any participant's name — a colored ball traces their path down the ladder to its outcome. Want everyone's result at once? Use "Reveal All at Once." If you want a fresh layout, "Rebuild Ladder" asks for confirmation first, since it resets every result you've revealed so far.

Copy the result as an image to share instantly

Once every result is revealed, a small copy icon appears in the top-right corner of the ladder box. Click it, and an image of the entire ladder — names, paths, and outcomes — is copied straight to your clipboard. No download needed: just paste (Ctrl+V) directly into a group chat to show everyone exactly how the results turned out.

Where can you use it?

Picking a restaurant, deciding presentation order, drawing prize winners, assigning project roles, or rotating chores — any time you need a random, fair pick. The ladder layout is freshly randomized every time, so even the same group will get different results on each run.