Mancala

How to play Mancala

The goal

Finish with more seeds than your opponent. You own the row of pits nearest you, and the store at the end your row runs toward: on the right, or at the top when the board stands upright on a phone (then your row is the right-hand column).

Every rule set

1. Sowing. On your turn, pick a pit on your row that has seeds. All of its seeds are lifted and dropped one at a time into the following pits, counter-clockwise: along your row, then back along your opponent’s.
2. The last seed matters. Where the last seed lands decides what happens next, and each rule set reads it differently.
3. The end. When the game ends, the player with more seeds wins. Equal counts are a draw.

Classic

6 pits a side, 4 seeds in each (3 to 6 in the options), and a store at each end.

1. Sowing passes through your own store, dropping a seed there, and skips your opponent’s.
2. Extra turn. If your last seed lands in your store, you sow again.
3. Capture. If your last seed lands in an empty pit on your row and the pit across holds seeds, both go into your store. With Capture from empty pits on, you capture the lone seed even when the pit across is empty.
4. The end. As soon as either row is empty, each player adds the seeds left on their own row to their store.

Oware

6 pits a side and 4 seeds in each (the abapa rules). Captured seeds go beside the board.

1. A pit with 12 or more seeds laps the board and skips the pit it was emptied from.
2. Capture. If your last seed lands on your opponent’s row and makes that pit hold 2 or 3 seeds, you capture them. Then check the pit before it, and keep capturing backwards while each pit on their row holds 2 or 3.
3. Grand slam. A move that would capture every seed on your opponent’s row is allowed, but it captures nothing.
4. Feeding. If your opponent has no seeds, you must make a move that gives them some. If you can’t, you take every seed on your row and the game ends.
5. The end. The game ends when a player has more than half the seeds (25 of 48). If both have 24, it is a draw.

Congkak

7 pits a side, 7 seeds in each (4 to 7 in the options), and a store at each end.

1. Sowing passes through your own store and skips your opponent’s, as in Classic.
2. Relay. If your last seed lands in a pit that already held seeds, on either row, you lift that whole pit and keep sowing.
3. If your last seed lands in your store, you sow again. If it lands in an empty pit on your row, you capture it with the pit across (as in Classic). If it lands in an empty pit on your opponent’s row, your turn ends.
4. The game ends as in Classic. This is a single round.

Pallanguzhi

7 pits a side and 6 seeds in each (4 to 6 in the options). Captured seeds go beside the board.

1. Relay. After your last seed, lift the seeds in the next pit and keep sowing.
2. Capture. If that next pit is empty, you capture the pit after it, and your turn ends. If both are empty, your turn ends with no capture.
3. Four-seed captures (on unless you switch it off): whenever a pit reaches exactly four seeds while you sow, the owner of that row captures them at once, even if it is your opponent.
4. The end. When the player to move has no seeds on their row, each player takes the seeds on their own row. This is a single round.

Pallanguzhi is played many ways across South India; this is one common version.

Long games

To keep every game finite, a game also ends if the same position comes up three times, or if 100 moves pass without a seed stored or captured. Each player then takes the seeds on their own row. A single move that relays more than 1,000 seeds stops there.

Help along the way

• Landing preview. Press, hover over or focus one of your pits to see where its last seed will land and what that does: an extra turn, a capture, a relay, or the end of your turn. Slide your finger away from the pit before lifting to cancel. You can switch the preview off in Settings.
• Hint. Suggests a move and says why. Hints are counted in your statistics, and a win still counts.
• Undo. Takes back your last move, and the computer’s reply with it. It works until the game ends, even after a reload.
• The last move. A small dot marks the pit the last move was sown from, so the computer’s reply is easy to follow.
• Sowing speed. Choose Relaxed, Normal, Quick or Instant in Settings. Long relays group repetitive drops so the move finishes in a few seconds; the counts remain exact.
• Tap the board while seeds are moving to finish the move at once.

Keyboard

Tab to the board. The arrow keys move along your row, and Enter or Space sows the focused pit. H asks for a hint, U undoes, and Escape finishes a move that is still moving.

Tips

• Count from the pit to your store: a pit with exactly that many seeds lands in your store for an extra turn. Take the pit nearest your store first, so the others still line up.
• In Oware, watch the pits on your row with 1 or 2 seeds: they are the ones your opponent can turn into 2s and 3s.

Questions

Do I need an account? No. Your game saves on this device automatically. An optional account adds cloud saves across devices.

How strong is the computer? Easy plays for fun, Medium takes what it sees, Hard plans several moves ahead, and Expert thinks harder still. Expert is strong, but not perfect.