Igisoro

Igisoro is a two-player board game of the mancala family that is primarily played in Burundi and Rwanda, where it developed as a regional adaptation of Omweso, a related mancala game traditionally played by the Baganda people of Uganda. The game is played on a board of four rows by eight pits, using a total of sixty-four seeds as playing pieces. Each of the two players controls the two rows of pits nearest to their own side of the board. A common starting arrangement places four seeds in every pit of each player's own back row, though players may agree to other starting configurations. On a turn a player chooses a pit on their own side that contains seeds and sows them one at a time into the following pits moving counterclockwise around the board; if the last seed sown lands in a pit that already contains other seeds, the player picks up the resulting group and continues sowing from that pit. Certain board positions allow a player to capture an opponent's seeds during this process. The game ends, and a player loses, once that player is unable to sow any seeds on their turn.