Oware
Classic · two players
Forty-eight seeds, and none of them are yours.
Ready to play now.
A demonstration of Oware, played by the computer against itself.
Oware — playing itself
Ways to play
Alone, against the computer
Your own pace, no arranging anything. Take a move back whenever you like.
Play alone5 opponents, weakest first
- GrabbingTakes the biggest capture in front of it and otherwise sows its fullest hollow. It never looks at what that leaves you.
- WaryLooks two sowings ahead — and then plays something else about three times in ten.
- CountingFive sowings ahead, and it stops handing you capture chains by accident.
- PatientFourteen thousand positions for every hollow it is weighing up. It sees the chain you are building before it lands.
- UnyieldingForty-five thousand a hollow, and it keeps going deeper for as long as they last. It plays for the twenty-fifth seed from a long way out.
Together, in the same room
2 players. One device goes round the table, or everybody plays off the same screen.
Play in the same roomOnline, at a table
A room code, joinable from anywhere. Pause tonight and pick it up next week from your device.
Play online
About
The oldest game on this shelf and the one with the fewest rules. Lift a hollow, drop its seeds round the board one at a time, and take whatever you leave sitting in twos and threes. Abapa rules, complete — including the two that stop it being simple.
How it feels
- Ancient
- Arithmetical
- Quietly brutal
What the design is for
Abapa rules, complete
The lap that steps over the hollow it started from, the capture that walks backwards through twos and threes, the sowing that would take everything and therefore takes nothing, and the obligation to feed an opponent with nothing left. Not one of them is optional and not one of them is missing.
The seeds are counted by being drawn
Up to eight stones lie in a hollow and you can count them. Past that the hollow is drawn full and the number is cut into the wood, because nobody counts eleven scattered seeds either. No badges, no dots with a figure beside them.
You must leave them something to play
When the other side of the board is empty, every hollow of yours that cannot reach them stops responding. The rule is the board going quiet rather than a line of text — and nothing on your own side explains why.
Five opponents, measured against each other
Bounded by positions counted rather than by a clock, so the same seed plays the same sowing on any machine. Each rung was played against the one below it a hundred and twenty times with the seats swapped, and every one of them is a rung you can feel.
One house rule, said out loud
Oware has no repetition rule, and two players with a handful of seeds can circle forever. A game here is capped at two hundred sowings and each side then takes what is lying on its own row — which is exactly what a table does when it agrees the game is dead.
Taught by playing
Six steps: a sowing, the lap that steps over its own hollow, a capture chain, the sowing that takes nothing, the obligation to feed, and then a whole game.
- Best at
- 2
- Kind
- Classic
- Table
- Competitive
- Studio
- Classic — public domain
The opponents
Grabbing
Takes the biggest capture in front of it and otherwise sows its fullest hollow. It never looks at what that leaves you.
Wary
Looks two sowings ahead — and then plays something else about three times in ten.
Counting
Five sowings ahead, and it stops handing you capture chains by accident.
Patient
Fourteen thousand positions for every hollow it is weighing up. It sees the chain you are building before it lands.
Unyielding
Forty-five thousand a hollow, and it keeps going deeper for as long as they last. It plays for the twenty-fifth seed from a long way out.
Achievements
0 of 5 earned
The Twenty-Fifth Seed
Win a game of Oware.
Three Hollows
Win, having emptied three of their hollows with a single sowing.
The Sowing That Took Nothing
Win, having played a sowing that could have taken their whole row — and so took none of it.
Nothing Left To Sow
Win a game that stopped because their row was empty and no sowing of yours could reach it — the seeds left on your own side are yours.
Thirty-Five
Win with thirty-five of the forty-eight seeds or more.
Key art
Key art — Board.game art system
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