Mancala

About this game

Mancala is one of the oldest board games in the world — a game of counting and sowing played on two rows of six pits with a store at each end. This is the four-seed capture version, the one most people mean when they say Mancala: quick to learn, hard to master, and decided entirely by how well you count ahead. On your turn you scoop up all the seeds from one of your six pits and sow them one at a time into the pits that follow, moving counter-clockwise. You drop a seed into your own store as you pass it, but you skip your opponent's store entirely — that single asymmetry is what makes the board a race rather than a loop. Where your last seed lands decides everything. Land it in your own store and you take another turn, so a well-counted pit can chain two, three or more moves in a row. Land it in one of your own pits that was empty, and you capture that seed together with every seed in the pit directly opposite, sweeping the lot into your store. A good player is always looking two moves ahead for the empty pit that sets up a big capture. The game ends the moment either row of pits runs dry. Whoever still has seeds on their side scoops all of them into their store, and the higher store wins. Because every seed is visible and nothing is hidden, there is no luck to blame — only the count you did or did not do. The computer opponent searches ahead with a time-budgeted alpha-beta engine, the same kind used for chess, and because Mancala has only six possible moves at any moment it reads deep lines quickly and plays a genuinely strong game on Hard. Easy is tuned to be beatable by a newcomer rather than merely slower, so there is a rung for every player. Choose Easy, Normal or Hard, and take back a move whenever you want to explore a different line. The board fits a phone in portrait, every pit is a button you can reach by keyboard, and each pit shows its seed count so nothing is read by colour alone.

Controls

Tap one of your six pits to sow its seeds counter-clockwise around the board.

Keyboard

• Number keys 1 to 6 sow from that pit.
• U takes back a move, N starts a new game.

Difficulty

• Use the Easy / Normal / Hard control to set how hard the computer plays.

How to play

You own the bottom row of six pits and the store on your right; the computer owns the top row and the store on the left. On your turn, pick up all the seeds from one of your pits and drop them one per pit going counter-clockwise, including your own store but skipping your opponent's store.

Two rules reward looking ahead

• If your last seed lands in your own store, you immediately take another turn — and these bonus turns can chain.
• If your last seed lands in one of your own pits that was empty, you capture that seed plus all the seeds in the pit directly across the board, and both go into your store.

Ending

• The game ends as soon as one player's six pits are all empty; the other player then moves every remaining seed on their side into their own store.
• The player with more seeds in their store wins. Because the whole board is always visible there is no luck, only counting.

Read the full Mancala rules and strategy →