Mancala Kalah Offline

How it plays

Tap one of your pits and its seeds are sown one at a time, counterclockwise. If the last seed lands in your store, you get a free turn. If it lands in an empty pit on your side, you capture the seeds in the pit across. When one row runs dry, the game ends and the most seeds wins.

Mancala is a whole family of seed games, and this app plays one of them: Kalah, with six pits and four seeds. The home screen says so, so you always know which rules you're playing.

What's in the game

Three computer levels

Easy plays loosely and is good for learning. Medium looks one reply ahead. Hard searches many moves deep and plans around free turns, so it'll punish a careless move. In my tests, Hard won all 50 games against Easy and all 20 against Medium. You pick who starts.

Two players on one phone

Hand the phone across the table. Player 1 has the bottom row and Player 2 the top, and Undo takes back one move.

Every seed counted for you

Each pit and store shows its count in a big number, so you never have to count pebbles. After every move a short line says what happened, like "You captured 5 seeds."

Move tips

Tips outline a pit whose last seed ends in your store and tell you why, for example "Pit 4 has 3 seeds. They end in your store, so you play again." They're on by default, and you can switch them off in Settings. The How to play page has small board diagrams for sowing, free turns, captures and the end of the game.

Walnut and linen

A warm walnut board in dark mode and a light linen look for daytime. Sowing can be normal or fast, and there's a reduced motion option too.

Questions