Play Mancala Online Free — Solo or With Friends

How to Play

1. Pick a mode: the computer, a friend on the same device, or an online room.
2. Your six pits are the bottom row and your store is the long hollow on the right. Your rival owns the top row and the store on the left.
3. On your turn, tap one of your pits that has seeds in it. All of its seeds are lifted out.
4. The seeds are dropped one at a time into the following pits, moving anticlockwise — along your row, into your store, then along the far row.
5. If the last seed lands in your own store, you move again straight away.
6. When one row is completely empty, the game stops. The store with more seeds wins.

Rules

This version follows Kalah rules. Each of the twelve pits starts with four seeds, so there are 48 seeds in all, and both stores start empty. You may only pick up seeds from a pit on your own side. While sowing, you drop a seed into your own store but always skip your opponent's store.

Extra turn: if your final seed falls into your own store, take another turn.

Capture: if your final seed lands in an empty pit on your own side, and the pit straight across from it holds seeds, you capture both — that last seed and everything opposite go into your store. If the opposite pit is empty, nothing is captured.

End of game: as soon as either row has no seeds left, each player moves all the seeds remaining on their own side into their own store. The totals are compared, and equal stores make a draw.

Tips & Strategy

• Count seeds before you move. A pit that holds exactly as many seeds as the steps to your store gives you a free extra turn.
• Chain your bonuses. Playing the right-most bonus pit first often leaves a second pit that now reaches the store exactly, so one turn can bank several seeds.
• Keep an empty pit as a trap. An empty pit on your side opposite a big enemy pile is a capture waiting to happen. Look for a small pit that can drop its last seed there.
• Watch the pits across from your piles. If your rival has an empty pit opposite your biggest pile and a way to land in it, move that pile or fill the gap first.
• Think about the ending early. When the game ends, seeds on a player's side go to that player's store. If you are ahead, running your own row empty can lock in the win before your rival's seeds come back around.

Game Modes

Play vs Computer has three strengths. Easy often picks pits without planning, which suits children learning to count. Medium looks five moves ahead and rarely wastes an extra turn. Hard searches much deeper, strings bonus turns together and guards its big pits, so beating it takes careful counting.

Play with Friend shares one board on one screen, and only the pits of the player whose turn it is can be tapped.

Play Online is for a friend on another phone or computer, and your own row is always shown at the bottom.

Play with Friends Online

Tap Play Online and make a room. You receive a room code together with a link — share it in a chat or read the code out loud. Your friend opens the link in their browser and joins your lobby without installing anything. The person who made the room starts the match once both players are present. Each sowing move is mirrored on the other screen immediately, and a player who gets disconnected can open the link again to rejoin the same game.