How to Play Mancala
Twelve pits, two stores, and a seed that lands home goes again.
Mancala is not one game but a family of them — sowing games, played across Africa and Asia on boards of pits for hundreds of years — and the Mancala sold in a box is one member of it, the game known as Kalah. These are its rules: two rows of six pits with four seeds in each and a store at each end, a sowing that drops a seed into your own store on the way round, another turn for a last seed that lands there, and a capture across the board for a last seed that lands in an empty pit of yours. Play it against the computer at three levels, or online against another player.
Ways to play Mancala
Two to four at the board
Play Mancala against the computer with one, two or three others at the board. Every seat is filled, so a game always starts.
Online with friends and family
Create a board, share the code, and play together on the same board. Online games count towards your rating and My Stats.
Picked up where you left it
Close the tab mid-game and come back to it — the game is kept in your browser, on the board you were playing.
No ads, ever
No advertising, no interruption, nothing to dismiss. The same promise as every Vanikar™ game.
🎯 Objective
Have more seeds in your store than the other side has in theirs when the game ends. Twenty-four each is a draw.
🎲 Mancala setup
- The board is two rows of six pits with a large store at each end. Four seeds go into every pit — forty-eight in all — and the stores start empty.
- Your store is at your right hand; the other side’s is at your left. A seed sown into your store is yours for good.
- You choose South — the bottom row, which sows first — or North; the computer takes the other at the level you set. Online, the host chooses South, North or a random draw.
- Seeds travel anticlockwise: along your row from your left, into your store, along the other row, and back.
▶ How to play Mancala
- On your turn, lift any pit of yours that has seeds and sow them one a pit into the pits after it, round the board.
- Drop one seed into your own store as you pass it. The other side’s store is skipped: nothing is ever sown into it.
- If the last seed lands in your own store, you take another turn.
- If the last seed lands in an empty pit on your own row and the pit straight across holds seeds, you take them all — and your own seed with them — into your store. If the pit across is empty, nothing is taken.
- When it is a side’s turn and its row is empty, the game is over. The other side keeps every seed still on its row.
🎬 Watch: How to Play Mancala
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📖 Detailed guide
The board
- Two rows of six pits, four seeds in each, and a store at each end. Yours is at your right, and the sowing goes anticlockwise through it.
- The count beside every pit and store is kept for you, so there is nothing to tally by hand.
- It is the board the game is sold on, and the rules are the ones in the box: Kalah, the member of the Mancala family most people outside Africa and Asia meet first.
Sowing, going again and taking across
- Lift a pit of yours and sow its seeds one a pit, dropping one into your own store on the way and skipping the other side’s.
- A last seed in your store earns another turn — and another, as often as it happens.
- A last seed in an empty pit of your own row takes the pit straight across, with your own seed, into your store — when there is something across to take.
- A lap is thirteen seeds long: a pit of thirteen or more sows a seed into the pit it was lifted from on the way round.
How it ends
- When the side to move has no seeds on its row, the game is over. The other side keeps whatever is still on its row.
- The fuller store wins; twenty-four each is a draw.
- A side that runs out while the other row is still full has handed those seeds over — so the end of the game is about who empties first, and who keeps what.
- On the digital table a game that reaches four hundred moves ends there: the seeds still on each row go to its owner, and the fuller store wins. A real game ends long before that.
Offline and online
- Offline, choose your side and the computer’s level — Easy, Medium or Hard — and the game is kept in your browser until you finish it.
- Online, two sit at the board. The host chooses South, North or a random draw; South sows first. The result counts towards your rating and My Stats.
🏁 How Mancala is won
The store with more seeds wins. All forty-eight seeds end up in the two stores, so twenty-five is enough and twenty-four each is a draw. The seeds left on a row when the game ends go to that row’s owner, which is why emptying your own row early can win the game or lose it.
❓ Mancala — frequently asked questions
How many players do you need for Mancala?
Mancala is played by 2. Seats you do not fill are taken by the computer, so a game always starts.
Where can I play Mancala?
In your browser at play.vanikar.games, on a computer, a tablet or a phone. Sign in with the same Vanikar™ account you use for the card games.
Is Mancala included in my subscription?
Yes. One Card Games by Vanikar™ subscription covers the card games, Chess & Checkers and the board games, and every game released after them.
Does Mancala have ads?
No. No Vanikar™ game has ever carried advertising, and none ever will.
Is Mancala one game or many?
Many. Mancala is the name of a whole family of sowing games played across Africa and Asia. The one sold in a box, and the one played here, is Kalah: six pits a side, four seeds in each, a store at each end.
What happens when the last seed lands in my store?
You take another turn, and another if it happens again. Pits that hold exactly as many seeds as their distance from your store do this — the rightmost pit with one, the next with two — so play those first.
How does the capture work?
When your last seed lands in an empty pit on your own row and the pit straight across holds seeds, you take all of those seeds and your own seed into your store. If the pit across is empty, nothing is taken and your seed stays where it landed.
How does the game end?
When it is a side’s turn and its row is empty. The other side keeps every seed still on its row, and the fuller store wins; twenty-four each is a draw.