Dara

Nigeria, the Dakarkari. It's played across much of the Sahel under other names.

Who moves first?

You don't need an account or an email, and there's nothing to install. You'll get a link to send to the person you want to play.

How to play

The board has thirty cells, six across and five down. It starts empty.
Each player has twelve pieces, which leaves six cells free once they're all placed.

You take turns putting one piece on any empty cell, until all twenty-four are placed.
Rows made while placing do not count for anything. Nothing is captured in this phase.

Once every piece is down, on your turn you move one piece one cell up, down, left or right.
Pieces never move diagonally and never jump.
With only six free cells, there is far less room than the board suggests.

Three of your pieces side by side in a straight line lets you take one enemy piece off the board.
A row is exactly three. If a fourth piece of yours joins the line, the row no longer counts, so moving into your own row can spoil it.
A row left behind by breaking up a longer line does not count.
A move that makes two rows at once still takes only one piece.
You may not take a piece that is itself in a row, unless every piece your opponent has left is in one.

A player who can no longer make a row of three has lost.
A row of three next to a row of two can be made again every turn, by sliding one piece back and forth. That takes a piece each time and ends the game quickly. It's allowed, and it's the strongest thing you can set up.

We play dara on a board of thirty cells, five rows by six.

Dara is played across much of the Sahel under half a dozen names, and the published descriptions of it disagree in three places.

Here's how we play those three rules.

One piece for two rows: A move that makes two rows at once takes one enemy piece, not two. We do the same in nine men's morris when a move closes two mills.
A broken line does not score: Sliding a piece out of a line of four and back again doesn't make a scoring row. Without this rule you'd get a free capture every second move, forever.
The size of the board: Ours is five by six. Some people play on six by six or seven by six.

Don't mix up dara with dala. The names are one letter apart, but dala scores rows while pieces are still being placed, and its board is six by six.