Mancala games

A board game for two players

Mancala games are a popular family of two-player, turn-based strategy board games. Played with small stones, beans, or seeds, they use rows of holes or pits in the ground, a board, or another playing surface. The typical goal is to capture all or a specific set of your opponent's pieces. (Wikipedia).

The mancala family includes many games, such as oware, bao, omweso, and others.

This implementation features several mancala games—kalah, oware, and congkak.

The game includes a board and a set of seeds or counters. Each side of the board has six small pits, known as houses, plus a large pit at each end called an end zone or store. The main objective is to accumulate more seeds than your opponent.

Kalah rules:

1. At the start of the game, four (or five to six) seeds are placed in each house.

2. Players control the six houses and seeds on their side of the board. A player's score equals the number of seeds in their store on the right.

3. Players alternate turns sowing seeds. During a turn, a player picks up all seeds from a house they control. Moving counter-clockwise, they drop one seed in each subsequent house, including their own store but not the opponent's.

4. If the final seed sown lands in an empty house owned by the player and the opposite house has seeds, both the last seed and the seeds from the opposite house are captured and placed in the player's store.

5. Landing the last seed in the player's store grants an extra move. There's no limit to how many moves a player can make in one turn.

6. The game ends when a player has no seeds left in any of their houses. The opponent then collects all remaining seeds into their store, and the player with the most seeds wins.

Oware rules:

1. To begin, four (or five or six) seeds go into each house. Each player controls the six houses and seeds on their side. A player's score reflects the seeds in their store on the right.

2. On their turn, players remove all seeds from one of their houses and sow them counter-clockwise, placing one seed in each following house—except the starting house and the scoring houses. If the starting house held 12 or more seeds, it is skipped, and the twelfth seed goes into the next house.

3. Capturing happens only when a player's final sown seed makes an opponent's house total exactly two or three seeds. This captures seeds in that house, and possibly more: if previous seeds also made opponent houses total two or three, those are captured too, continuing until a house doesn't meet these conditions or isn't owned by the opponent. Captured seeds go into the player's scoring house.

4. If all opponent houses are empty, the current player must choose a move that gives seeds to the opponent. If no such move exists, the player captures all seeds on their own side, ending the game.

5. The game ends when one player has captured over half the seeds, or if both players have captured half (resulting in a draw).

What's New in the Latest Version 1.4.1

Last updated on Aug 6, 2024 - Bug fixes