Oh-Wah-Ree

Oh-Wah-Ree is a mancala variant designed by Alex Randolph and published in 1962 by 3M as part of its bookshelf game series, with Avalon Hill later publishing the game as well. Its name comes from Oware, the traditional West African game it is based on. The board has twelve pits arranged in a ring, and players start by distributing pebbles equally among them. On a turn a player scoops all the pieces from one of the pits they own and drops them one by one, clockwise, into the following pits. A player captures the opponent's stones whenever the last piece dropped lands in an opponent's pit that then holds two or three pieces, and those captured stones are set aside. What sets Oh-Wah-Ree apart from most two-player mancala games is a second ring of holes marking which pits belong to which player, a device that allows more than two people to play at once. The game supports two to four players, runs about thirty minutes, and is recommended for ages eight and up. The player who has captured the most pebbles when the board empties wins.