Game 93 · Ghana mancala

Oware

Sow seeds around a Ghanaian mancala board and capture your rival's stores.

Choose your opponent

Ten opponents, each sowing a little sharper than the last. Beat one to unlock the next - your progress is saved on this device.

How to play Oware

  1. Board: 12 pits in a ring - your 6 pits are the bottom row, the opponent's 6 are the top row. Every pit starts with 4 seeds (48 seeds total).
  2. Sow: tap one of your non-empty pits. Its seeds are picked up and dropped one-by-one into each following pit counterclockwise - the pit you started from is skipped if the sowing wraps all the way around the board.
  3. Capture: if your very last seed lands in an opponent pit that then holds exactly 2 or 3 seeds, you capture everything in it. Captures then chain backward through the immediately preceding opponent pits, as long as each one also holds 2 or 3 - the chain stops at the first pit that doesn't qualify.
  4. Feeding rule: if the opponent's entire row is empty, you must - if a legal option exists - play a move that gives them at least one seed, so the game never strands a side with nothing to play.
  5. Win/lose: whoever has captured more seeds when the game ends wins; capturing 25 or more of the 48 seeds is an outright win on the spot. When one side can no longer be fed and has no legal sowing move, the game ends and all remaining seeds on the board go to whichever side still has seeds on their own row.

The campaign: 10 named opponents (Kwaku through Osei Bonsu) form a difficulty ladder from a 1-ply lookahead beginner who blunders 4 times in 10 to a 7-ply grandmaster who never does. 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, campaign matches only) runs the same minimax search the AI uses, 5 moves deep, to highlight a genuinely strong pit for you to sow from - it won't play the move for you, and it won't tell you why.

Daily puzzle: the "🧩 Daily puzzle" button opens a hand-built tactical position, separate from the campaign, with a stated objective like "capture at least 8 seeds in 1 move" or "guarantee 11+ captured within 2 of your moves." Five puzzles rotate by the calendar date, so the same puzzle returns roughly once a week. Solving one on consecutive days builds a streak, tracked on this device.

Match recap: every campaign or practice game ends with a short recap - total moves played, how many of your sows captured seeds, your biggest single capture, and the longest stretch either side went without a capture.

Game over