Ladder was written by Yahoo Software of Los Angeles, California.

[1][2] Along with Star Trek, CatChum and Aliens, Ladder was one of the games that came with the software bundle of the early Kaypro computers.

Since the Kaypro only has a text mode, the game uses letters, numbers, and symbols lined up to create walls and platforms, pits/traps, characters, trampolines and goals.

The "lad" controlled by the player starts out as the letter "P" (lowercase "q" on left), the treasure is the dollar sign "$" and the ampersand "&", and barrels ("der rocks") are represented by "o"s. The catchphrase of the game reminded the acolyte player that there are more ways than one to skin a cat.

These could entail (at the apex of the game) for instance jumping on a trampoline at precisely the right speed and point of impact to fall into one of the pit/traps, at the right timing that there would be no barrels passing for a sufficient interval.