Overview

Oware is a game of great antiquity, played by both African kings on gold and ivory boards and the poor who've made simple boards in the dirt. It has been played in various forms for millenia and the oldest boards date back thousands of years. It has survived until today because of its simple rules, interesting game play, and rich strategy. Now we have entered a new phase in the evolution of this game. Ivory City Systems has created The Oware Wizard that uses the latest in computing and Artificial Intelligence to create an Oware opponent like no other. Can you beat him? While playing this ancient game, you will see a slide show background of beautiful landscapes from all parts of Africa. Hopefully it will allow you to reflect on the land and culture that originally inspired this game so long ago.

The Game Layout

How To Play

The rules are simple. It is you versus the Oware Wizard. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins. Each of you starts with 4 "seeds" in each cup. During your turn, you may play one of the six cups on your side. When you move a cup, the seeds in that cup will be "sown" in a counter-clockwise fashion. In other words, one seed will be placed in each cup sequentially until there are no more seeds to sow. The Oware Wizard will immediately make his move after you. He will move one of the six cups on his side and also sow those seeds counter-clockwise. If you can't figure out which cup he moved, look for the red indicator rectangle, that shows the last move. There is one more caveat. If a cup is heavily loaded with 12 or more seeds, sowing will loop around the entire board. However, you will not sow your original cup; you will skip it and continue on. A handy heuristic for dealing with heavily loaded cups is to treat the cup to the right of the original as 12 and count 12 onwards. This makes it easier to figure out where the sowing will end. Okay, now that we understand how to move, lets talk about scoring points. You capture seeds when the last cup you sow on your opponent's side contains either 2 or 3 seeds. Those seeds are removed from the game and added to your score. Also, if you can make an unbroken sequence of cups on your opponent's side with 2 or 3 seeds, you may take the entire sequence, scoring all those points. However, the sequence must start where your last seed ends, just as it would in a single capture. So with this new information, lets look at the above capture move again. Is there a move that can get us a sequence instead? Lets find out below. Well, now that we know how to score points, lets learn how the game ends. Towards the end of the game, there will be many fewer seeds. A situation will eventually arise where one player has no seeds on his side. However, if there is a move to sow the empty player, he is obligated to do so, giving him seeds to play with. However, if there is no move to sow the empty player, the player who has seeds captures all the remaining points. The game is then over. Lets look at the example below.

Interface Features

Control Buttons New Create a new game, discards the current game Quit Exit the program Undo Backs up the Oware Wizards last move and your last move. Redo Restores the Oware Wizard's last move and your last move AI Difficulty Controller AI Level Slider Select the difficulty level of the AI, 0-14. 0 is the easiest, 14 is the hardest. End Game Optimizer Naturally, the AI is not great at winning the final seeds. Check this box if you want a more challenging end-game. Smart Defender This optimization enables AI defensive properties. You will usually find it more difficult to score points against this AI player. Check to enable the features. Background Selection Background Slider Move the slider to set the current background image. Enable Slide Show We have included 28 beautiful nature scenes from various parts of Africa. You may select your background using the slider. By default, the backgrounds rotate every 10 seconds. Uncheck "Enable Slide Show" to keep your favorite background set for the duration of your game.