Mancala with Kalah rules: sow seeds, grab captures and extra turns. Play the computer on Easy, Medium or Hard, or take turns with a friend on one screen.
This Mancala game follows the Kalah rules: you win by finishing with more seeds in your store than the other player. The board has two rows of 6 pits and a store at each end. Every pit starts with 4 seeds, so 48 seeds are in play and a store of 25 or more wins; 24 each is a draw. You can start with 3, 4, 5 or 6 seeds per pit instead. On your turn you pick one of your own non-empty pits and pick up all of its seeds. You drop them one at a time into the next pits going round the board, passing through your own store but skipping your opponent's store. If the last seed lands in your own store, you move again. If it lands in an empty pit on your side and the pit opposite it holds seeds, you capture: that last seed and everything in the opposite pit go into your store. If the opposite pit is empty, nothing is captured and the seed stays. A pit with 13 seeds goes all the way round and its last seed lands in the pit it started from, which is empty again by then, so that also counts as a capture.
The game ends as soon as one side has no seeds left in its 6 pits, whoever made the last move. The seeds still on the other side then go into that side's own store, and the bigger store wins. This is the rule this page implements; some families of rules instead let the player who still has seeds keep playing, or give the leftover seeds to the player who ran out. A move that ends in your store while your side is empty also ends the game. A worked example: with the standard 4 seeds, the third pit sends one seed to each of pits 4, 5 and 6 and the last seed into your store, so you go again. In general a pit numbered n reaches the store when it holds 7 minus n seeds, so pit 1 needs 6, pit 6 needs 1, and 13 more than that also works after a full lap.
The computer searches ahead with negamax and alpha-beta pruning, which skips lines that cannot change the result, and it stops after a set number of positions. A turn that earns an extra move is searched as one unit, so the computer plans chains of moves. Easy looks 2 turns ahead and 4 times in 10 plays a random pit. Medium looks up to 5 turns ahead and Hard up to 10, within a limit of about 6,000 and 40,000 positions. A position is scored as four times the difference between the two stores, plus the difference in seeds left on each side. A forced win found sooner scores higher, and equal moves are picked at random, so games differ. In the page's test suite Hard beats Easy in at least 15 of 20 seeded games. Hard is a solid opponent, not a perfect one, because of the position limit.
Tap one of your pits; the ones you can play have a dashed ring. Seeds are dropped one at a time so you can follow them, and the last pit that received a seed is highlighted. Every pit and store shows its seed count as a number, and the note under the board says what the last move did, such as a capture of 6 seeds. With a keyboard, Tab moves between pits and Enter or Space plays one, and the keys 1 to 6 play that pit for the side to move. Pits are numbered in the direction you sow: 1 to 6 left to right on the bottom row and right to left on the top row. U undoes. Against the computer, Undo takes back your last move and the reply; in 2 players mode it takes back one move. With reduced motion switched on in your system, seeds appear instantly. The game in progress, your settings and your record against the computer are saved in this browser. There is no sound and no online play.
Finish with more seeds in your store than your opponent. With 4 seeds per pit there are 48 seeds, so 25 or more wins and 24 each is a draw. The game ends when one side has no seeds in its pits.
When the last seed of your sowing lands in your own store. With 4 seeds per pit, pit 3 does it on the first move, because pits 4, 5 and 6, then the store, get the seeds. The note under the board says when you go again.
If your last seed lands in an empty pit on your side and the pit opposite has seeds, you take both: for example a seed alone in your pit 2 and 3 seeds opposite give you 4 seeds in your store. If the opposite pit is empty, nothing is captured.
When one side runs out of seeds, the other side's remaining seeds go to that side's own store. So an empty side does not collect anything, and the player with seeds left banks them. The larger store wins.
Yes. Choose Seeds per pit: 3 puts 36 seeds in play, 5 puts 60 and 6 puts 72. More seeds means longer sowing and more laps. Changing the option starts a new game.
Choose 2 players. Player 1 plays the bottom row and Player 2 the top row, taking turns on the same screen. Those games are not added to your record against the computer.
No. Moves are processed in your browser and not uploaded. The game in progress, your settings and your record are saved in this browser's storage only. The page counts visits with Google Analytics, never your moves.