Oware
the sowing game of West Africa · forty-eight seeds, twelve pits, and arithmetic you can hold
WEST AFRICA · A LIVING TRADITION
Forty-eight seeds in twelve pits. Sow them one by one around the board; where your last seed falls decides what you harvest.
The history
One family, a hundred names
Oware belongs to the mancala family — the sowing games, played by moving seeds around rows of pits — which spreads across Africa and Asia in hundreds of local forms. This one is the game of the Asante of Ghana, where it is a game of honour and quick arithmetic; carried across the Atlantic by enslaved West Africans, it took root in the Caribbean as warri, and it is played in tournaments in Ghana today.
A counting game
Nothing in oware is hidden and nothing is luck: every seed on the board is there because somebody counted. The whole game is foreseeing where your last seed will fall — and whether the pit it lands in will harvest your opponent's row, or feed it. Masters count whole laps of the board the way chess players count moves, and a good game turns on a single seed.
The honest footnote
Mancala games live by playing, and house rules differ across the family — what happens to leftover seeds, whether a grand slam is allowed. The version overleaf is the widely played standard: a capture may never take every seed on the enemy row, because a game that starves the other side of moves has beaten itself.
The rules, plainly
A game for two players · no luck in it at all · the capture is arithmetic, not chance
Setting up
Set four seeds in every pit. Each player owns the six pits on their side of the board. Decide by lot who sows first.
Sowing
On your turn, take all the seeds from one of your own pits and sow them one by one into the pits that follow, moving counterclockwise around the board, one seed in each pit, never skipping. If your handful runs to twelve or more, it laps the board — and skips the pit you started from when it comes round again.
Capturing
If your LAST seed lands in an enemy pit and makes that pit hold exactly two or three seeds, you capture them — they leave the board and are yours. Look backward from there: if the enemy pit just before it also holds two or three, you capture those too, and so on back along the enemy row, until a pit breaks the chain. But a capture may never take every seed on the enemy row: if it would, it does not happen at all — the other side must always be left something to play with.
Winning
Captured seeds are the score. The moment a player has captured 25 seeds — more than half — they win at once. If one side's row stands empty at the start of their turn, the game ends and the seeds remaining on the other row go to that row's owner; the fuller capture pile wins. If a game circles for two hundred turns without a capture, it ends as it stands.
Play it here
Play against the school, at Apprentice, Journeyman, or Master strength — or pass the screen and play a friend.
Your side
Computer strength
THE RULES, PLAINLY — THIS VERSION
The board is two rows of six pits, four seeds in every pit to begin. Your row is the one nearest you. The number in a pit tells how many seeds it holds.
Sowing. On your turn, tap one of your own pits: you pick up all its seeds and drop them one by one into the pits that follow, travelling around the board — along your row, then along your enemy's row, then back to yours. If a pit holds twelve or more seeds, the sowing laps the board, and the pit you started from is skipped as you pass it.
Capturing. If your last seed lands in an enemy pit and makes it hold exactly two or three seeds, you capture those seeds. Then look at the enemy pit just before it: if it also holds two or three, capture those too, and keep going back while the run lasts. But a capture that would take every seed on the enemy's row is not allowed — those seeds stay where they are.
Winning. Captured seeds are your score. Take twenty-five and you win at once — more than half the seeds can never be caught. The game also ends when a player, on their turn, finds their whole row empty: any seeds still on the board then go to the player whose row they're sitting on, and the higher score wins. Two hundred turns without a capture ends it too, scored as it stands.