Designers | Alex Randolph |
---|---|
Publishers | |
Publication | 1962 |
Genres | |
Players | 2-4 |
Playing time | 30 minutes |
Age range | 8+ |
Oh-Wah-Ree is a mancala variant - a strategy board game designed by Alex Randolph and published in 1962 by 3M as part of their bookshelf game line. [1] The name "Oh-Wah-Ree" is taken from Oware , a typical West African game for which it is based on. It is played on a board with a ring of pits and stone playing pieces, distinguished from other mancala variants by the use of a second ring of holes to mark ownership of pits by the players, allowing play between more than two players at a time. [2] The object is to capture the opponents' stones.
There are many different Oh-Wah-Ree variations which have their own rules and win conditions. In each version, pebbles are divided equally between the 12 pits. On their turn, a player chooses any one of the pits marked by a marker of their colour and scoops all the pebbles out of it, dropping them one at a time clockwise into adjacent pits.
In standard Oh-Wah-Ree, a player may capture pebbles when their last pebble is dropped in an opponent's pit which contains two or three pebbles. The game ends when one player cannot play because their pits are empty, or in a game with more than two players when two players in succession cannot play. The player with the most pebbles wins the game. [2]
Grand Oh-Wah-Ree is a rules variant of Oh-Wah-Ree in which the players capture pits as well as the stones in them. The capturing player places a marker of their own colour into the second ring of holes, replacing an opponent's marker, and the pit is theirs until it is recaptured. The game continues as normal, with the winner being the player with the greatest number of pits at the end. [2]
Games magazine included Oh-Wah-Ree in their "Top 100 Games of 1981", noting that while there may be many commercial versions of mancala, "only this one includes rules for several of the best variations, as well as illustrative examples of entire games". [3] The game was also included in their "Top 100 Games of 1982", where it was similarly said that of the wooden boards marketed by other companies "none of those editions provide so outstanding a rulebook, giving rules for 10 of the best two-rank mancala ("pit-and-pebble") games". [4]
Mancala refers to a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces.
Risk is a strategy board game of diplomacy, conflict and conquest for two to six players. The standard version is played on a board depicting a political map of the world, divided into 42 territories, which are grouped into six continents. Turns rotate among players who control armies of playing pieces with which they attempt to capture territories from other players, with results determined by dice rolls. Players may form and dissolve alliances during the course of the game. The goal of the game is to occupy every territory on the board and, in doing so, eliminate the other players. The game can be lengthy, requiring several hours to multiple days to finish. European versions are structured so that each player has a limited "secret mission" objective that shortens the game.
Can't Stop is a board game designed by Sid Sackson originally published by Parker Brothers in 1980; however, that edition has been long out of print in the United States. It was reprinted by Face 2 Face Games in 2007. An iOS version was developed by Playdek and released in 2012. The goal of the game is to "claim" three of the columns before any of the other players can. But the more that the player risks rolling the dice during a turn, the greater the risk of losing the advances made during that turn.
TwixT is a two-player strategy board game, an early entrant in the 1960s 3M bookshelf game series. It became one of the most popular and enduring games in the series. It is a connection game where players alternate turns placing pegs and links on a pegboard in an attempt to link their opposite sides. While TwixT itself is simple, the game also requires strategy, so young children can play it, but it also appeals to adults. The game has been discontinued except in Germany and Japan.
Patolli or patole is one of the oldest known games in America. It was a game of strategy and luck played by commoners and nobles alike. It was reported by the conquistadors that Moctezuma Xocoyotzin often enjoyed watching his nobles play the game at court.
Oware is an abstract strategy game among the mancala family of board games played worldwide with slight variations as to the layout of the game, number of players and strategy of play. Its origin is uncertain but it is widely believed to be of Ashanti origin.
Kalah is a modern variation in the ancient Mancala family of games, the oldest known version having been found carved into a stone tablet in the 16th-century BCE pyramid of Cheops. The Kalah variation was developed in the United States by William Julius Champion, Jr. in 1940. This game is sometimes also called "Kalahari", possibly by false etymology from the Kalahari desert in Namibia.
Omweso is the traditional mancala game of the Ugandan people. The game was supposedly introduced by the Bachwezi people of the ancient Bunyoro-kitara empire of Uganda. Nowadays the game is dominated by Ugandan villagers. It is a very hard and fast game said to keep one's mind high and ever excited, which can make it addictive. The equipment needed for the game is essentially the same as that of the Bao game. Omweso is strictly related to a wide family of mancalas found in eastern and southern Africa; these include Coro in the Lango region of Uganda, Aweet in Sudan, ǁHus in Namibia, Kombe in Lamu (Kenya), Mongale in Mombasa (Kenya), Mongola in Congo, Igisoro in Rwanda, and Kiela in Angola.
Bao is a traditional mancala board game played in most of East Africa including Kenya, Rwanda Tanzania, Comoros, Malawi, as well as some areas of DR Congo and Burundi. It is most popular among the Swahili people of Tanzania and Kenya; the name itself "Bao" is the Swahili word for "board" or "board game". In Tanzania, and especially Zanzibar, a "bao master" is held in high respect. In Malawi, a close variant of the game is known as Bawo, which is the Yao equivalent of the Swahili name.
Southeast Asian mancalas are a subtype of mancala games predominantly found in Southeast Asia. They are known as congklak, congkak, congka, and dakon in Indonesia, congkak in Malaysia and Brunei, and sungkâ in the Philippines. They differ from other mancala games in that the player's store is included in the placing of the seeds. Like other mancalas, they vary widely in terms of the rules and number of holes used.
Bohnenspiel is a German mancala game described in the 1937 Deutsche Spielhandbuch.
Pallanguli, or Pallankuli, is a traditional ancient mancala game played in South India, especially Tamil Nadu and Kerala. This game was later introduced to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in India, as well as Sri Lanka and Malaysia. The game is played by two players, with a wooden board that has fourteen pits in all (hence, it is also called fourteen pits, or pathinālam kuḻi. There have been several variations in the layout of the pits, one among them being seven pits on each player's side. The pits contain cowry shells, seeds or small pebbles used as counters. There are several variations of the game depending on the number of shells each player starts with.
The 3M bookshelf game series is a set of strategy and economic games published in the 1960s and early 1970s by 3M Corporation. The games were packaged in leatherette-look large hardback book size boxes in contrast to the prevalent wide, flat game boxes. The series grew to encompass over three dozen games. Most were multi-player board games or card games; a few were trivia games or two-handed board games. Acquire and TwixT were among the best-selling titles. The series later became part of the Avalon Hill Bookcase games. Very few of these games are still being published.
Enkeshui is a traditional mancala game played by the Maasai of both Kenya and Tanzania. It is a rather complex mancala game, and bears some similarities to the Layli Goobalay mancala played in Somaliland.
Isolo is a traditional mancala game played by the Sukuma people in northern Tanzania. The rules of the game come in three variants, respectively for women, boys and men.
Layli Goobalay is a board game played in parts of Somalia. It is a variant of the classical count and capture game mancala, which is one of the oldest two-player strategy board games played throughout the world. Layli Goobalay means "to exercise with circles" in the Somali language.
Mbothe is a traditional mancala game played by the Pokomo people that live along the Tana River, in Kenya. Pokomo do not traditionally build gameboards; they dig pits in the ground and use small stones as counters.
La'b Madjnuni, also known as Crazy Game, is a mancala game played in Damascus (Syria) in the late 19th century.
This glossary of board games explains commonly used terms in board games, in alphabetical order. For a list of board games, see List of board games; for terms specific to chess, see Glossary of chess; for terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems.