Modiar
Game type: Two-player two-row mancala without stores; 2×3 board with single-lap counter-clockwise sowing; first seed sown into origin pit; singletons prohibited from moving; backward-chaining captures of two, four, or six stones; mandatory feeding and grand-slam restriction.
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Overview
Modiar is an engaging children's mancala game played in agricultural communities surrounding the port city of Tangier in northern Morocco. Recorded in December 2012 by board games researcher Jordi Climent, the rules were provided by native informant Loubna Charrabi from the village of Chrarba. Children typically play outdoors, excavating six small depressions into hardened soil and gathering common gravel or smooth river pebbles as counters.
Despite its compact 2×3 playing field, Modiar incorporates sophisticated opening rules and ethical gaming conventions, including a requirement to re-sow into the originating hole, a strict ban on moving isolated singletons, first-move capture forfeiture, and protections against wiping out an opponent's pieces.
Board
- Ranks/rows: Two
- Holes per row: 3
- Stores: None
- Seeds per hole at start: 7 stones
- Total seeds: 42 stones
- Each participant commands the row of three pits nearest to them.
How to Play
- Players take turns selecting an eligible pit on their side of the board.
- Minimum Lift: Pits containing only a single stone (singletons) cannot be moved; a player must select a pit containing at least two stones.
- Origin Sowing: The player picks up all stones from the chosen pit and deposits the first stone directly back into that emptied pit, before distributing the remaining stones singly in a counter-clockwise circuit around the board.
- Sowing terminates after a single lap once the hand is depleted.
- Mandatory Feeding: If an opponent has no stones left in their row, the active player is required, if capable, to make a move that passes stones into the opponent's territory.
- Grand Slam Ban: A player is strictly forbidden from executing a move that captures all stones from the opponent's row simultaneously.
Capturing
- When the final stone of a turn lands in any pit—on either player's side—and brings the total count to two, four, or six stones, those stones are captured and set aside.
- First Move Exception: On the very first move of the game, any potential capture is forfeited and the stones remain on the board.
- If a valid capture occurs, the capture extends backward: any pits immediately preceding the landing hole along the sowing path that also contain two, four, or six stones are captured in an unbroken chain.
End of Game and Winning
- The game concludes when the player whose turn it is has no legal moves available at the beginning of their turn (for instance, possessing only empty holes or singletons).
- At the game's conclusion, each player scoops up all stones remaining in their own three pits and adds them to their captured pile.
- The player who has collected the greater total number of stones wins the match.
Notes
- The requirement to drop the first counter back into the emptied starting hole (sowOriginFirst) is a characteristic shared with Saharan mancala games like Koumma and Tihbat, altering opening distributions and keeping starting pits populated longer.
- Prohibiting singleton moves alongside the mandate to feed starving opponents prevents premature attrition, ensuring long, tactical endgames on a compact board.
Source: Mancala World – Modiar