Mancala games

A two-player strategy board game

Mancala refers to a group of two-player, turn-based strategy games. They are played using small stones, beans, or seeds, which are moved around rows of holes or pits carved into the ground, a board, or another surface. The typical goal is to capture all or a specific set of your opponent's pieces. (Wikipedia).

The mancala family includes numerous games, such as Oware, Bao, Omweso, and others.

This is an implementation of several mancala games, including Kalah, Oware, and Congkak.

The game includes a board and a quantity of seeds or counters. The board features six small pits, known as houses, on each side, plus a larger pit, called an end zone or store, at each end. The objective is to capture more seeds than your opponent.

Kalah rules:

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

2. Each player controls the six houses and their seeds on their own side of the board. A player's score is determined by the number of seeds in their store on the right.

3. Players alternate turns sowing seeds. On a turn, a player picks up all seeds from one of their houses. Moving counter-clockwise, they drop one seed into each following house, including their own store, but not the opponent's store.

4. If the final seed sown lands in an empty house the player owns, and the opposing house contains seeds, both that last seed and all seeds in the opposite house are captured and placed into the player's store.

5. If the last sown seed lands in the player's own store, they earn an extra move. There is no limit to the number of consecutive moves a player can make in one turn.

6. When a player has no seeds left in any of their houses, the game finishes. The other player collects all remaining seeds into their store, and the player with the most seeds in their store wins.

Oware rules:

1. To begin, four (five, or six) seeds are placed in each house. Each player controls the six houses on their side. The player's score is the number of seeds in their scoring house on the right.

2. On a turn, a player takes all seeds from one of their houses and sows them by dropping one seed into each subsequent house counter-clockwise. Seeds are not sown into the scoring houses or back into the starting house, which is left empty. If a house contains 12 or more seeds, it is skipped during sowing, and the 12th seed goes into the next house.

3. Capturing happens when a player's final sown seed makes an opponent's house total exactly two or three seeds. This captures the seeds in that house. Consecutive captures occur if the preceding seeds also brought opponent houses to two or three seeds, continuing until a house is encountered that does not have two or three seeds or does not belong to the opponent. Captured seeds go to the player's scoring house.

4. If all of the opponent's houses are empty, the current player must choose a move that provides the opponent with seeds. If no such move exists, the player captures all seeds remaining on their own side, ending the game.

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

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Last updated on Aug 6, 2024 - Bug fixes