A short contribution of mine is up on Kill Screen today.
The topic of the piece, a Malaysian folk game based on the local Mancala variant, is SO DAMN OBSCURE that I couldn’t find the exact rules anywhere - just anecdotes and one very blurry video with lots of shouting in Malay - and no one in KL knew what the hell I was talking about.
If you know anything about this, please let me know!
Perhaps as an elementary schooler you were introduced to a Mancala board. It’s long and narrow, often made of smoothed wood, with a series of pits dug in two rows. Seeds, stones, or marbles act as the playing pieces, jumping from “house” to “house” in the various basins.
There are popular adaptations among hundreds of localized variations across Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, but there is no “standard” Mancala game.
A Malaysian offshoot is called Congkak. It’s played throughout parts of Southeast Asia, traditionally by girls, and like many other Mancala games, involves obtaining more playing pieces in your home pit than your opponent’s.
Interestingly, in the Malaysian state of Terengganu, this traditional offshoot has its own more obscure variation, Congkak Gergasi Wanita, in which the pits are houses and players carry playing pieces in baskets. It means “Women’s Giant Congkak.”
Garden Chess this ain’t.
