Mulberry Mancala

What is mancala?

Mancala is not one game but a whole family of them, played across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Caribbean. The name comes from an Arabic word for moving things. Boards cut into stone and floors date back at least 1,500 years, and there are hundreds of named games, from Oware in Ghana and Bao in East Africa to Congkak in Malaysia and Toguz korgool in Kyrgyzstan.

They all share one idea: sowing. You lift every seed from one pit and drop them one at a time into the pits that follow. Where your last seed lands decides what happens next. We built Mulberry Mancala with two of the best known rule sets, Kalah and Oware, and we made the sowing feel like the real thing: every seed flies, lands with a click, and the count beside each pit ticks up as it does. It's free, it runs in your browser and there's nothing to download.

How to play Kalah

Kalah is the version most people in North America and Europe learn first, often just called mancala. It was published in the United States in the 1950s, drawing on the African games.

1. The board. Each player has a row of six houses and a store at their right end. We start with 4 seeds in every house, 48 in all (you can pick 3, 5 or 6).
2. Sowing. On your turn, pick one of your houses that has seeds. Lift them all and drop one into each pit counterclockwise: along your row, into your own store, then along your opponent's row. You skip your opponent's store.
3. Extra turns. If your last seed lands in your own store, you go again. There is no limit, so a good turn can chain three or four sows together.
4. Captures. If your last seed lands in an empty house on your side, you capture it plus every seed in the house directly opposite, and they all go into your store.
5. The end. When one player's six houses are all empty, the game ends. The other player moves the seeds left on their side into their own store. Whoever has more seeds in their store wins.

There is one rule that varies from set to set. With the standard capture, nothing happens when the house opposite is empty. With the empty capture rule, used in most computer research, you still capture your lone last seed. Mulberry Mancala has both.

How to play Oware

Oware (also called awale, awari or warri) comes from the Akan people of Ghana and is played across West Africa and the Caribbean. It is the national game of Antigua and Barbuda. It feels quite different from Kalah: there are no extra turns and the stores only hold what you capture.

• Six houses each, 4 seeds in every house. Seeds are never sown into a store.
• A house with 12 or more seeds goes all the way round the board and skips the house it came from.
• Capturing: if your last seed lands on your opponent's side and makes that house hold exactly 2 or 3 seeds, you take them. Then look at the house before it: if it also holds 2 or 3, take that too, and so on back along their row.
• Grand slam: a sow that would capture every seed on your opponent's side is allowed, but it captures nothing. This is the abapa rule, the most common one in tournaments.
• Feeding: if your opponent's side is empty, you must make a move that gives them seeds. If you can't, you take the seeds on your own side and the game ends.
• The first player to capture 25 seeds wins. If both reach 24, it is a draw. In our game, if 100 turns go by with no capture, each player takes the seeds on their own side.

Playing Mulberry Mancala

Tap or click one of your houses to sow it. With a mouse, point at a house first and a ring shows where the last seed will land: green when it earns another turn, gold when it captures. On a keyboard, the keys 1 to 6 sow your houses counted from your left, or Tab to the board and use the arrow keys and Enter. A tap on the board or Space finishes a sow at once.

On a tall phone screen the board stands up: your houses run down the left side and your store sits at the bottom, so the pits stay big enough to tap. On a wider screen it lies flat, with your row along the bottom.

• Counts sit next to every pit and store, and screen readers hear each sow and both stores.
• Undo takes back your sow and the house player's replies.
• The light bulb gives our pick and says what it does. In Kalah, once about 20 seeds are left in the houses, it tells you the exact result with perfect play.
• The review after a game marks the sows that cost you the most, such as one that turned a win by 4 into a loss.
• Settings include sowing speed (Normal, Quick or Instant), the landing preview, seed counts, high contrast and less motion.

The house players

Five animals from the mulberry grove, each with a different way of going wrong. They see only the board you see.

Kalah with 4 seeds has been solved by computer: the first player wins with perfect play. So when Linden moves first in Kalah, you are up against it, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. By default you and the house player take turns moving first. Oware is a draw with perfect play, which makes it the fairest test.

Daily Sowing and the ladder

The Daily Sowing is three rounds, the same for everyone each day. Big harvest: one turn of Kalah, where you gather as many seeds into your store as you can, extra turns included. Oware capture: a single sow, capture as many seeds as you can. Win from here: a Kalah ending you can win by force, played against Linden's perfect defence. The first two score up to 100 by how close you get to the best. The ending scores 100 for winning by the full margin, 60 for any win and 20 for a draw. Your first Daily Sowing of the day goes on the leaderboard, out of 300.

The ladder is a rating that starts at 1200 and moves after every game against a house player. Beating a stronger player moves it more, and the leaderboard keeps your best.

Play with friends

Pass and play puts two people on one phone or tablet, sitting on either side of the board, and the first player swaps every game. To play a friend on another device, one of you hosts and gets a four letter room code, and the other types it in or opens the shared link. The host picks the rules. If the connection drops, we hold the game for two minutes, and a rematch is one tap. Online games use a few friendly reactions instead of chat.

Tips and strategy

Count your free turns

In Kalah, a house with exactly enough seeds to reach your store gives you another turn. House 6 needs 1 seed, house 5 needs 2, and so on up to house 1 with 6. When two houses are ready, sow the one nearest your store first, so the other still lines up.

Watch their empty houses

Before you sow, look at every empty house on your opponent's side and ask whether one of their sows can end there. If it can, the seeds opposite it on your side are at risk. Moving a big pile out of danger is often worth more than a small capture.

Keep seeds on your side late in Kalah

When one side runs out of seeds, the other player keeps everything left on their own side. A big pile in your house next to the store can quietly decide the game, as long as it is not sitting opposite one of their empty houses.

In Oware, think in 1s and 2s

Houses on their side holding 1 or 2 seeds are targets, because your last seed can make them 2 or 3. Your own 1s and 2s are their targets. Keeping several houses with seeds also keeps your options open, and running out of moves is how many Oware games are lost.

Build a big house in Oware

A house with 12 or more seeds sows all the way round and can end with a run of captures on the far side. Strong players save one up and release it when the other side is full of 1s and 2s.

Questions