Game 92 · South Africa, Botswana & Lesotho

Morabaraba

Form rows of three to capture pieces on a Southern African mill board.

Choose your opponent

Ten herders and elders, each reading the board a little better than the last. Beat one to unlock the next - your progress is saved on this device.

How to play Morabaraba

  1. Board: 24 points made of three concentric squares (outer, middle, inner) connected at their midpoints by four spokes. You and the AI each have 12 pieces.
  2. Placement phase: you and the AI alternate placing one piece per turn on any empty point, until all 24 pieces are down.
  3. Forming a mill: if 3 of your pieces ever line up along one of the board's 16 straight lines (a side of one of the three squares, or a spoke connecting the three squares), that's a "mill" - you immediately capture and remove one AI piece. You can't remove a piece that's currently part of an AI mill unless every single AI piece is in a mill.
  4. Movement phase: once all 24 pieces are on the board, instead of placing you slide one piece per turn to an empty point directly connected to it by a line. Forming a mill this way - even by breaking one and re-forming it later - captures again, the same as in placement.
  5. Flying: if you're ever reduced to exactly 3 pieces, that piece count grants you a comeback power: you may move any one of your pieces to any empty point on the whole board, not just an adjacent one.
  6. Win/lose: reduce the opponent below 3 pieces, or leave them with no legal move on their turn, and you win. Fall below 3 pieces yourself, or run out of legal moves, and you lose. Forty piece-moves in the movement phase with no capture from either side ends the game as a draw.

The campaign: 10 named opponents (Thabo through Induna) form a difficulty ladder. Early opponents place and move almost randomly and barely react to your threats; later ones sharply prioritize their own mills, actively block yours, and look one move ahead to avoid handing you a free mill. Each opponent has a short line of flavor text above the board and their pieces are tinted with that opponent's own accent color, so the ladder feels like ten different herders and elders rather than ten numbers. Beat the opponent at the front of the ladder to unlock the next one; your unlocked tiers and cleared stars are saved in this browser. Practice matches don't affect your progress.

Hint: the "💡 Hint" button (3 uses per match) runs the same placement/movement scoring the AI uses, tuned to a strong-but-fair setting, and briefly highlights the point it considers your best placement or move. During the movement phase it highlights both the piece to move and the point to move it to. It only suggests - it never places or moves for you.

Match recap: every game ends with a recap - total placements/moves made, how many mills you formed (each one a capture), the opponent's mills against you, and the longest stretch either side went without forming a mill.

Game over