Mancala

Mancala is a free sowing strategy game you can play in your browser. Sow stones counter-clockwise, take an extra turn from your store, and capture the opposite pit. Play Classic or Quick against Easy, Medium, or Hard, pass a device for two players, or share the daily Medium board.

Also known as: sowing game, pit and store

Play Mancala free in your browser. Sow stones counter-clockwise, earn extra turns, and capture opposite pits. Classic, Quick, two players, or the shared daily board.

How to play Mancala

  1. Choose Classic, Quick, 2 players, or Daily, plus Easy, Medium, or Hard. Classic is six pits a side with four stones each (48 stones). Quick is four pits a side with three stones each (24 stones). 2 players uses the Classic board on one device. Daily is the Classic board at Medium, the same layout for everyone until UTC midnight — open it from a link with ?daily=1. Daily locks Medium.
  2. You sit on the bottom row; your store is on the right. The Computer, or Player 2, sits on the top row with the store on the left. On Classic, pick who moves first: You or the Computer. Quick and Daily always start with you. In 2 players, Player 1 (bottom) moves first.
  3. Kalah sowing runs counter-clockwise and never drops a stone in the opponent’s store. Tap a pit on your side. Those stones are picked up and dropped one per pit: along your row toward your store, into your store, then through the far row from the right back toward the left. A lap that would land in the pit you just emptied skips it. That is the 13-stone skip on Classic (cycle length 13) and the 9-stone skip on Quick.
  4. If the last stone lands in your store and you still have stones in your pits, you go again. If the last stone lands in an empty pit on your side and the opposite pit has stones, you capture: both pits move into your store. An empty opposite pit captures nothing.
  5. When either side’s pits are all empty, the other side’s remaining stones sweep into that player’s store and the game ends. An extra turn is cancelled when the move already ended the game. The higher store wins. Equal stores draw.
  6. Undo is single-player only. It returns to the start of your turn, before your first sow: every extra sow, any capture, and the Computer’s full reply. It stays disabled while stones are moving or the Computer is thinking, and it is hidden in 2 players. If the Computer moved first, Undo waits until you have finished a turn. Restart deals the same mode again; Daily keeps today’s UTC board.

Most stones wins. Margin is your store minus the opponent’s store. Classic and Quick save wins, losses, and draws on this device for Easy, Medium, and Hard, plus the largest winning margin. Daily is one Medium record, and it keeps the best margin for the current UTC date, updated whenever a finished daily margin is higher, including losses. 2 players is not saved.

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