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Igisoro
Igisoro · Rwanda's board game
Sow your seeds round your pits and eat your opponent's cows. Play the computer at five levels, a friend online, or two players on one phone.
Tap one of your pits with two seeds or more. The seeds go one by one, anticlockwise, round your two rows.
Landing in a pit with seeds? Pick them all up and sow on. An empty pit ends your move.
End in a filled pit of your inner row, with both pits facing it full, and you take them all.
Leave your opponent with no pit of two seeds, and you win.
Igisoro is Rwanda's own board game, also called kubuguza. It belongs to the mancala family played across Africa, in its four-row form: a wooden board of 32 pits (amacuba) and 64 seeds, called inka, "cows". To capture is kurya, "to eat".
It is a game of counting and planning: before you play a pit, you count where its seeds will fall, where they will be picked up again, and whether the last one will land where it can eat. Strong players see several sowings ahead.
The rules here are the core of the game as Rwanda's cultural heritage academy, Inteko y'Umuco, describes it. Rules vary from region to region; this version leaves out the clockwise reverse sowing (kugarama) and passing a capture.
Igisoro is Rwanda's traditional board game, a four-row mancala played on a wooden board of 4 rows of 8 pits (amacuba) with 64 seeds called inka, "cows". Each player owns the two rows nearest them, sows seeds round them, and captures (kurya, "eats") the opponent's seeds.
Each player starts with four seeds in every pit of their inner row. On your turn, pick a pit with two seeds or more and sow its seeds one by one, anticlockwise, round your two rows. If the last seed lands in a pit with seeds, pick them all up and keep sowing; an empty pit ends the move.
If your last seed lands in a pit of your inner row that already had seeds, and both of your opponent's pits facing it hold seeds, you take them all. They are sown on from the pit after the one you started from.
A player who has no pit with two seeds or more at their turn loses. Leave your opponent nothing to play.
Yes. Choose "Someone online", then Invite a friend: you get a 6-letter code and a link to send on WhatsApp, and you play live on two phones. Or Find a player to be paired with someone looking for a game.
No, to play the computer or a friend on the same screen. Playing online needs a free Ganzaa account.