Oware

Pick one of your houses and sow its seeds one by one into the following pits. If your last seed lands in an opponent's house bringing it to two or three, you capture it, then sweep backward grabbing any consecutive twos and threes.

• Sow seeds counter-clockwise from any of your non-empty houses
• Capture when your final seed makes an enemy house total two or three
• A move that would starve your opponent entirely earns no capture
• First to capture more than half of the 48 seeds wins

• Desktop: click one of your houses to sow
• Phone & tablet: tap a house

• Versus CPU on Easy, Normal or Hard
• Two-player hotseat on one device, plus Online play
• Choose which side you play in CPU games

• Build up a loaded house to wrap the board and reach deep captures
• Keep your opponent's pits empty to deny them sowing options
• You are obliged to feed a starving opponent, so plan around that rule

Oware is the most widespread game in the mancala family, and the national game of the Bono and Ashanti states and of Antigua and Barbuda.

Its name carries a story. In Twi, the language of the Akan people, oware means "he marries" or "she marries" — from a legend about a man and a woman who played so continuously that they married in order to keep playing.

That legend describes how the game is actually used. Oware is played with an audience expected to take part: onlookers discuss positions and advise the players openly, which makes it arguably the most social two-player abstract game there is, and quite unlike the silence that surrounds chess.

Oware is an original free browser version of the ancient West African sowing game from the mancala family, a deep abstract strategy classic of counting and timing. No download required.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.