Ladders have played a surprisingly pivotal role in all sorts of different video games, from AAA shooters and action-adventure titles to visual novels and cosy life sims.

In our Ladders in Video Games series, we spotlight some of our favourite video game ladders – and today we're looking at the ladders (or should that be *step* ladders?) that pop up in just about every instalment of Capcom's Ace Attorney series.

In the Ace Attorney games, you play as a defence lawyer (normally the hedgehog-haired Phoenix Wright, although other characters get to share his spotlight later on) who is fighting to clear his client's name. Virtually every case involves a murder and a wrongly-accused individual, and it's on you to spot the flaws in the prosecution's seemingly airtight case.

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When you're using a ladder, safety should be your top priority at all times - including when you're climbing down the ladder.

Falls from ladders are a common cause of injury both at home and in the workplace, so don't allow yourself to become complacent. You may have finished changing that light bulb (or whatever it was you needed the ladder for) but until both of your feet are firmly on the ground, there's still a chance that you could fall and hurt yourself.

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Working at height is a hazardous business - obviously. You don't need us to tell you to be careful when you're standing at the the top of a 20ft ladder or on the roof of a multi-storey building. You know, instinctively, the danger such a situation poses.

What you might not realise is how broad the definition of 'working at height' actually is. You don't have to be all that far off the ground to be at risk - guidance from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states that 'work at height' means "work in any place where, if there were no precautions in place, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury".

Even a short drop can result in serious injuries, so before you - or your employees - enter any situation where work at height is necessary, it's important to 1) think about what could go wrong, and 2) take steps to minimise risk.

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Ladders don't have 'expiration dates' as such, but it is true that a ladder can only be used for so long before it becomes unreliable and unsafe. Climbing a rickety old ladder that's no longer fit for purpose may result in a nasty fall.

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Cast your mind back to the beginning of 2018: Theresa May was Prime Minister, everyone was falling in love with that man-fish thing from The Shape of Water, and the word 'covid' was still a couple of years from meaning anything at all.

It was around this time that the EN131 ladder regulations were updated and a number of new rules came into force regarding the design and manufacture of portable ladders. You can read our blog about EN131 if you want all the details - for now, there's one specific rule we'd like to focus on:

Leaning ladders, telescopic ladders and hinge-jointed ladders longer than 3 metres must be wider at the base to make them more stable.

- from the Ladder Association's updated EN131 guidance

The easiest way to make a ladder wider at its base is to fit it with a stabiliser bar. When the updated EN131 regulations came into effect, most British ladder manufacturers started fitting all of their ladders with a stabiliser bar as standard.

So a ladder without a stabiliser bar can be a difficult thing to find nowadays - and even if you could find one, it wouldn't necessarily be safe to use. Still, if you're absolutely determined to get your hands on a ladder with no stabiliser bar, you do have a few options...

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