Once you have practiced the Little Goat Game (page 35), try this more challenging version. People in Sudan call the game Umel Bagara. Another name is Mangala. This name is similar to Mankala, the Arabic word for “transferring.” Mankala games are popular in most of Africa and in several other parts of the world. The game is for two players.
• Empty (one dozen) egg carton, with the lid removed
• Colored markers
• 2 small bowls or cups
• 50 counters of one kind (beans, buttons, pebbles, or shells)
The board for this game has five cups on each side, ten cups altogether. You may remove the two cups at the end of the egg carton, or just ignore the two end cups. You might want to decorate the carton with African patterns and colors. Place one bowl at each end of the board as a storage bowl to hold the captured beans. Figure 10a
1. The players sit facing each other with the game board between them. Place five beans or other counters in each cup. The five cups on each side of the board belong to the player nearest them. The storage bowl to the right of each player belongs to that player.
2. To move, players take turns picking up all the beans in any one of their cups and dropping them, one bean in each cup, starting with the cup next to the starting cup. This is called “sowing the seeds.”
Figure 10a
Notice the arrows in the diagram of the board. These arrows tell you which direction your move takes. Moves from the player’s two right-hand cups go to the right. Moves from the two left-hand cups go to the left. Moves from the center cup can go either right or left. Some beans will fall into the cups on the other player’s side of the board. Do not “sow” into the storage bowls. Figure 10b
Figure 10b
Figure 11
Player One captures six beans
3. If the last bean of a move lands in one of the opponent’s cups and makes a two or a four, these beans are captured and placed in the player’s storage bowl. If the cup just before this one also contains two or four beans, those beans may be captured as well. The same is true for the cup just before that one, and so on, as long as each cup contains two or four beans and lies on the opponent’s side of the board. Figure 11 shows that Player One has sowed six beans from her center cup, and captured six beans from her opponent’s cups.
A move cannot begin from a cup containing just one bean.
If a player cannot make a move, he or she must skip that turn, and continue skipping until a legal move is possible.
4. When neither player can move, the game is over. Each player may capture the beans on his or her side of the board and add them to the storage bowls. The player who has captured the larger number of beans is the winner.
Play both sides by yourself. You may want to start with three beans in each cup, or 30 beans altogether. It will be a real challenge to remember the direction of each move! Plan the best moves that will lead to capturing the opponent’s beans.
There are many versions of the Mankala game. In some versions, moves are made in only one direction, either to the right or to the left. You may want to change some of the rules and perhaps invent a new game.
