Mancala games

For enthusiasts of strategic gameplay, the mancala family of board games offers a rich variety of two-player experiences, utilizing small stones, beans, or seeds and a board with rows of pits or holes. Popular variations within this family include oware, bao, omweso, and more. This particular implementation features the games kalah, oware, and congkak, each providing unique challenges and strategies.

The game setup includes a board with 6 small pits, referred to as houses, on each side and a larger pit, known as an end zone or store, at each end. The primary goal is to capture more seeds than your opponent. Here's a detailed look at the rules for two of the featured games:

Kalah Rules

1. **Initial Setup:** At the start, four to six seeds are placed in each house.

2. **Control and Scoring:** Each player oversees the six houses and their seeds on their side of the board. The player's score is determined by the number of seeds in the store to their right.

3. **Sowing Seeds:** Players alternate turns, selecting one house to remove all seeds from and then distributing them counter-clockwise, including into their own store but bypassing their opponent's store.

4. **Capturing:** If the last seed sown lands in the player's empty house, and the opposite house contains seeds, both the last seed and the seeds from the opposite house are captured and moved to the player's store.

5. **Additional Moves:** Landing the last seed in the player's own store grants an extra turn, with no limit to consecutive turns.

6. **End Game:** The game concludes when one player has no seeds left in their houses. The remaining seeds on the board are then moved to the other player's store, and the player with the most seeds in their store wins.

Oware Rules

1. **Initial Setup:** Similar to kalah, four to six seeds are placed in each house at the beginning.

2. **Sowing:** Players take turns selecting a house to empty and distribute its seeds counter-clockwise, skipping the house from which seeds were taken and the end scoring houses. If a house initially contains 12 or more seeds, it is skipped after the twelfth seed.

3. **Capturing:** Capturing occurs when a player's final seed sowed brings an opponent's house count to exactly two or three, capturing those seeds. This can chain back if the previous seeds also created a two or three count in other opponent houses.

4. **Compulsory Moves:** If an opponent has no seeds left, the player must make a move that leaves the opponent with seeds. If impossible, the player captures all remaining seeds in their territory, ending the game.

5. **Game Over:** The game ends when one player captures more than half of the total seeds, or when 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 - bugfixes