Wari is among the most widely played of the Mancala family of boardgames. It is known by a variety of regional names, including Awari, Oware, Awale, Woro, and Ayo, and it is played throughout Africa and the West Indies. The rules are as follows:
 
The board is divided into twelve holes and two stores. One player plays from the bottom six holes and the other plays from the top six. The stores are used for storing captured pieces -- called beans -- and do not play a role in the game. The right store is for the bottom player and the left store for the top player.
 
The game begins with four beans in each of the twelve holes. The bottom player goes first. A move is made by picking up the beans in a player's hole and sowing them one at a time counterclockwise around the board. Sowing begins with the hole immediately after the lift hole and continues until all the beans have been dropped. If twelve or more beans are sown, the lift hole is skipped over and remains empty at the end of the turn.
 
If the last piece dropped by a player lands in an opponent hole that contains two or three beans (including any dropped beans), those beans are captured and placed in the player's store. If the captured hole is preceded by an unbroken chain of one or more enemy holes containing two or three beans, those beans are also captured.
 
If all of the opponent's holes are empty, you must make a move that gives at least one bean to the opponent, unless no other move is available. If you make a move that would normally capture all opponent beans, no captures result.
 
The game ends when a player captures twenty-five beans or when a player has no move because all of that player's holes are empty. In the latter case, all remaining pieces are awarded to the opponent. If it is your turn to move and you have no beans, you must click on an empty hole to award the remaining beans to the opponent. The winner is the player with the most captured beans at the end of the game.
 
For a generic game engine, Zillions plays Wari remarkably well.
 
Please send any comments or bug reports to dtroyka@justice.com.
 
For more Mancala games available on Zillions, check out the Mancala game page.