Mancala is one of the oldest board games in the world. In the Kalah version you play here, you and the computer take turns sowing stones around a board of twelve pits, trying to collect more stones in your store than your opponent.
The board
Each player has six pits on their side and a store at the end of their row. Your pits are the row nearest you, and your store is at your right-hand end. On a phone the board stands upright, with your pits in the right column and your store at the top.
Every pit starts with the same number of stones: 4 by default, or 3, 5 or 6 if you pick that when starting a new game. Small badges beside each pit and store show how many stones are in it.
Sowing stones
On your turn, pick one of your pits that has stones in it.
All of its stones are picked up and dropped one at a time into the following pits, going counterclockwise.
Sowing goes through your own store, but skips the computer’s store.
Press and hold a pit to see where its last stone will land before you let go.
Extra turns and captures
If your last stone lands in your own store, you take another turn straight away.
If your last stone lands in an empty pit on your side, and the computer’s pit directly opposite has stones, you capture: that stone and all the stones opposite go into your store.
If the opposite pit is empty, nothing is captured and your stone stays where it landed.
The computer follows exactly the same rules.
How the game ends
The game ends as soon as one side has no stones left in any of its pits. Each player then moves all the stones still on their own side into their own store.
Whoever has more stones in their store wins. If the stores are equal, the game is a draw. The first move alternates between you and the computer from game to game.
Tips to beat the computer
Look for pits whose stone count exactly reaches your store: an extra turn is free progress, and you can often chain several in a row.
Play extra-turn moves from the pits nearest your store first, so moves further back still land exactly.
Watch for empty pits on your side across from a big pile, and count whether one of your pits can land there.
Before each move, check what the computer could capture next turn, and avoid leaving a big pile facing one of its empty pits.
Start on Easy to learn the patterns, then try Normal and Hard. Hard searches many moves ahead and rarely misses a capture.