Now that our Snake and Ladder Docker image is available in Amazon ECR, the next step is to deploy it using Amazon ECS Express.
ECS Express is the fastest way to run containerized applications on AWS without manually creating clusters, task definitions, or services.
What is ECS Express?
ECS Express is a simplified deployment option in Amazon ECS that:
Automatically creates the ECS cluster
Creates the task definition
Sets up the service
Deploys your container using AWS Fargate
Deploying a Snake & Ladder Game on Amazon ECS using AWS Fargate
Managing servers can quickly become overwhelming—even for simple applications. In this blog, we’ll deploy a Snake & Ladder game on Amazon ECS using AWS Fargate, where AWS handles the infrastructure while we focus on the application.
Create an ECS Cluster
Open Amazon ECS Console
Click Clusters → Create cluster
- Choose:
Cluster name: snake-ladder-cluster
Infrastructure: AWS Fargate
- Click Create
Fargate removes the need to manage EC2 instances—AWS takes care of scaling and capacity.
Create a Task Definition
A task definition is a blueprint for running containers in ECS.
Task basics
Family: snake-ladder-task
Launch type: AWS Fargate
Compute configuration
CPU: 0.25 vCPU
Memory: 0.5 GB or 1 GB
These values are perfect for a lightweight game app.
Do We Need a Task Role?
When creating the ECS task definition, you might notice that we did not select a Task Role.
This is intentional.
The Task Role is required only when the application running inside the container needs to access AWS services such as:
Amazon S3, DynamoDB, SQS, Secrets Manager, Parameter Store
Our Snake & Ladder game is a standalone web application and does not interact with any AWS services. Therefore, assigning a task role is unnecessary.
However, we did assign a Task Execution Role , which allows ECS to:
Pull the Docker image from Amazon ECR
Push container logs to Amazon CloudWatch
Selecting “Create default role” lets ECS automatically create the required Task Execution Role for you.
When enabled, AWS:
Creates the ecsTaskExecutionRole
Attaches AmazonECSTaskExecutionRolePolicy
Configures the trust relationship for ECS
👉 No manual IAM setup required.
Container configuration
Container name: snakeAndladder
Image URI:
.dkr.ecr..amazonaws.com/snake-ladder-game:latest
Port mapping:
Container port: 80(or your app’s port)
For Logging, Keep the default values
Click Create button to create the Task Definition
Create ECS Service (Fargate)
Now we connect everything together.
Open ECS → Clusters → snake-ladder-cluster
Click Create service
Service settings
Task definition: Choose the Task definition created in the above step
Service name: snake-ladder-service
Desired tasks: 1
Leave the rest to default values
You can use a Load Balancer if needed, Here I am proceeding without a Load Balancer as I have only 1 desired task
Click Create service 🚀
Wait for task deployment to complete, Navigate to Task Tab, You should be able to see the task
Once the Task is opened, Go to networking tab and click on the public IP to open the application
Access the Snake & Ladder Game 🎉
🎮 Your Snake & Ladder game is now live on AWS!
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