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Pick a level above and press Play. You are purple, and you move first.
👆 Tap one of your glowing pits to sow its stones • 🏺 Last stone in your store = a free turn • 🎯 Last stone in an empty pit on your side captures the pit opposite • 🏁 The game ends when one side is empty
The classic mancala game, free in your browser. Mancala Stones is our original version of Kalah, the counting-and-capture game played for generations. Pick up the stones in one of your pits, sow them around the board one by one, and try to finish with more stones in your store than your rival. Land your last stone in your store and you move again. Land it in an empty pit on your side and you capture everything opposite. Simple to learn, deep to master — and you can play it right here, with no download.
Genre
Board · Strategy
Players
1 vs Computer · 2 Players
Pieces
48 stones · 12 pits · 2 stores
Price
Free
In this guide
- How to play
- The rules, exactly as this game plays them
- Controls
- The computer level ladder
- Strategy tips
- FAQ
- Final verdict
How to play Mancala Stones
The board has two rows of six small pits, with a big store at each end. Your row is the purple one at the bottom, and your store is the tall pit on the right. Every small pit starts with 4 stones, so 48 stones are in play. Your job is simple to say and hard to do: finish the game with more stones in your store than your rival has in theirs.
- Tap one of your glowing pits. Your square picks up every stone in it.
- The stones are sown one by one, moving counter-clockwise: up your row, into your store, along the rival row, and back around. Your own store always gets a stone when you pass it. The rival store is skipped, every time.
- If your last stone lands in your store, you take a free turn. Chain free turns together and a quiet board can turn into a rout.
- If your last stone lands in an empty pit on your side, you capture: that stone and every stone in the pit directly opposite jump straight into your store.
- The game ends the moment all six pits on either side are empty. The other player sweeps every stone left on their side into their store, and the higher store wins. A 24–24 finish is a tie.
The rules, exactly as this game plays them
Mancala Stones plays the classic Kalah rules — the version most people learn first — and it plays them exactly, with no house tweaks hiding in the code. Here is the full set, so you always know why a move did what it did.
- The setup. Twelve small pits, six on each side, start with 4 stones each. Both stores start empty. Purple moves first.
- Sowing. On your turn you choose one of your own non-empty pits. All of its stones are picked up and dropped one at a time into the pits that follow, moving counter-clockwise. Your store is on the path and receives a stone like any other pit. The rival store is never sown into — it is skipped, and your sowing continues past it.
- The free turn. If the very last stone you sow lands in your own store, you move again at once. There is no limit on chained free turns: land in the store three times in a row and you take three extra moves. A free turn never carries over — it must be used straight away.
- The capture. If your last stone lands in a small pit on your own side that was empty before the stone dropped, and the pit directly opposite holds at least one stone, you capture: your last stone and all of the opposite stones move into your store. One honest detail: if the opposite pit is empty, there is no capture at all — your stone simply stays where it landed. Captures can only happen on your own side, and only with the last stone of a sowing.
- The end of the game. The game ends as soon as the six pits on either side are all empty. The player who still has stones on their side sweeps them all into their own store. The player with the most stones in their store wins; 24 against 24 is a tie.
- No other rules. There is no pie rule, no stealing from stores, and no passing: if you have a non-empty pit, you must sow it. Undo takes back a full round against the computer (your move and its reply), or a single move in two-player games.
Controls for phone and PC
| Action | Phone / tablet | PC / laptop |
|---|---|---|
| Sow a pit | Tap one of your glowing pits | Click one of your glowing pits |
| Take back a move | Tap Undo | Click Undo |
| Give up the game | Tap Resign | Click Resign |
| Change mode or level | Tap Menu | Click Menu |
| Sound on or off | Tap the speaker button | Click the speaker button |
The computer level ladder
Beat a level to unlock the next one. Your unlocked level, your record on every level, and the highest level you have beaten are all saved in your browser. There is also a Daily Duel: one game a day against the Smart computer, driven by a seed taken from the date, so anyone who faces it on the same day with the same moves meets the same replies. Your first Daily Duel of the day is the one that counts for your streak.
| Level | Name | How it thinks | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seedling | Picks from its legal pits at random | Learning the rules and your first wins |
| 2 | Smart | Thinks one move ahead and grabs the best store gain it can see, including captures and free turns | A real fight for new players |
| 3 | Mastermind | Searches eight moves deep with alpha-beta pruning and a full scoring board | A serious test — Kalah rewards deep counting |
Strategy tips that win games
- Count to the store. The golden rule of Kalah: a pit whose stone count exactly reaches your store earns a free turn. Early on, your third pit holds the perfect number. Learn to spot these distances at a glance.
- Set up captures, do not just find them. A capture needs one of your pits to be empty when your last stone arrives. Empty a pit on purpose, then feed it a single stone from a pit the right distance away. The best players build these traps two moves ahead.
- Guard your full pits. A fat pit opposite an empty rival pit is a gift waiting to be taken. If one of your pits grows heavy, check what sits across from the rival's empty pits before you leave it there.
- Play the free-turn chain. One free turn is good; three in a row can end the argument. When two or more of your pits can reach the store in sequence, take the chain — it scores stones and reshapes your side at no cost.
- Watch the end coming. The game ends the moment one side empties. If you are ahead on stores, emptying your own side can lock the win before the rival claws stones back. If you are behind, keep at least one stone on your side alive so the sweep cannot happen yet.
- Do not feed the store race blindly. Sowing past your store drops stones on the rival side, and stones on a side are future store points for whoever owns that side. A long sowing that wraps the whole board helps your store by one and may hand the rival a capture. Count the whole path, not just the start.
Is Mancala Stones free and safe to play?
Yes. Mancala Stones is free, and it runs entirely on this page. There is nothing to install and no account to make. The game keeps only your level records, your best level and your Daily Duel streak, and it keeps them in your own browser, on your own device. Nothing about your games is sent anywhere.
More games and guides on GameOLL
- Want every game in one place? Visit our Play Games page.
- Like forced captures and chained jumps? Play Checkers Master, our checkers game.
- Prefer dropping discs to sowing stones? Play Connect Four Duel.
- Chase the perfect merge in Tile Merge 2048.
- Train pure logic with Sudoku Master.
- Clear the board in Minesweeper.
Mancala Stones FAQ
Is Mancala Stones free to play?
Yes. Mancala Stones is 100% free. You play it right on this page, against the computer, in the Daily Duel, or with a friend on the same device. There is no download, no sign-up and no payment.
What rules does Mancala Stones use?
It uses the classic Kalah rules: six pits and four stones per side, sowing counter-clockwise, your store on the path and the rival store skipped. Landing your last stone in your store earns a free turn, and landing it in an empty pit on your side captures the stones opposite. The game ends when one side is empty, and the other side sweeps its remaining stones into its store.
What happens if the pit opposite is empty when I land in an empty pit?
Nothing — and that is the real rule, not a bug. A capture needs stones to capture. If the opposite pit is empty, your last stone simply stays in the pit where it landed and the turn passes as normal.
How do the computer levels work?
There are three levels: Seedling, Smart and Mastermind. Seedling picks from its legal moves at random. Smart thinks one move ahead and takes the best store gain it can see, including captures and free turns. Mastermind searches eight moves deep with alpha-beta pruning. Beat a level to unlock the next one.
What is the Daily Duel?
The Daily Duel is one game a day against the Smart computer, seeded by the date. Everyone who plays it on the same day and makes the same moves meets the same computer replies. Your first Daily Duel of the day counts: win it to grow your daily streak, which is saved in your browser.
Can two people play on one device?
Yes. Pick 2 Players on the start screen and pass the device back and forth. Purple moves first, Navy answers from the top row, and the game keeps the match score for the session.
Final verdict: should you play Mancala Stones?
Yes — if you like games that take one minute to learn and months to master. Mancala Stones plays honest Kalah: real free turns, real captures, and the sweep at the end that turns small leads into routs. The three-level ladder grows with you, the Daily Duel gives you a fresh reason to come back every morning, and two-player mode turns one phone into a board you can share. Take the ladder's first rung, and count your way up.
▶ Play Mancala Stones 🎮 See All Free GamesLast updated: November 5, 2026. Mancala Stones v1.0 — the first release of our original Kalah mancala game, with classic rules, a three-level computer ladder with unlocks, a date-seeded Daily Duel, a two-player mode on one device, and saved records. An original GameOLL browser game. Found a bug? Tell us in the comments and we will fix it in the next version.
