Chess and Mancala

 

I played Mancala because I grew up playing, and mostly losing, chess. The goal of the game is to collect as many gems/rocks as you can against the opponent. The core rules of the games are: 1. players take turns choosing holes with beads in it to drop into the other holes, 2. they cannot choose an empty hole, 3. they must disperse one bead at a time going counter clock wise, 4. if the whole has more than 12 beads when the beads are dispersed the original hole where the bead was is skipped, 5. if the player lands on an empty hole they can capture the opponants beads, 6. if the player lands on the designated goal they player gets an extra turn. The game was fun for me, I got the free app. Honestly, I read the instructions online, I called a friend and asked them to explain it verbally, but it wasn’t until I played the game I understood it. It was fun because, partly I finally understood what in the world these websites were saying, it was like a math problem and chess had a child. I enjoyed the mathematical elements of counting the bead and figuring out where it would go and how that would afftect the next round. Also that there were some psychology behind it, it made me think about what the opponent would do next, during my turn. I enjoyd that there were some stratigizing involved, but not as complex as chess. I would be interested if the game had a small set of beads that did something. Like in UNO, there are wild cards, take two, skip next player ect, it would be interesting if this game had something like it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *