Dogon → German, Portuguese.
| Dogon |
| Inventor: Ralf Gering, 2010 |
| Ranks: Two |
| Sowing: Single laps |
| Region: Germany |
Dogon was invented by Ralf Gering in Hain (Germany) on March 6, 2010. Some rules were changed in July 2023. The game is a variant of Oware, which reminds of Alemungula.
There are two minor variations: Dogon "kulei" and Dogon "gagara". Kulei is Dogon for "six" and gagara is Dogon for "eight", Dogon "kulei" is played on a 2x6 board, while Dogon "gagara" needs a 2x8 board.
The game is named after the Dogon people in Mali because of their fantastic architecture – villages built into the cliff like some “pueblos” in America’s Southwest.
Rules
In Dogon "kulei", players have 4 seeds in each hole at the start. In Dogon "gagara", they have six seeds per hole. Seeds are captured as in Oware. Sowing is single lap and the original hole is skipped, if you get enough seeds to sow a full round.
Initial Position (Dogon "kulei")
Dogon village, Cliff of Bandiagara (Mali)
The differences are:
- seeds are sown in either direction
- singletons can never be sown unless they capture
- a sowing must reach the opponent's row if the opponent didn't pass the move immediately before
- otherwise, the contents of any other hole, which contains at least two seeds, can be sown in any direction
- players are permitted to capture all the opponent's seeds so that he cannot move
- players must play unless there is no move, in which case they must pass until they can move again
- if the opponent's row remains unaltered (either because (a) the opponent couldn't move, (b) nothing was sown to the opponent's row, or (c) nothing was captured), the direction of sowing (i.e. clockwise or counterclockwise) can only be changed twice.
Mesa Verde Pueblo (Colorado, USA)
- for every move a player must pass he has to "pay" his opponent two seeds (i.e. transfer two captured seeds to him) unless the opponent will have to pass the following move too, which would then end the game
- if a player cannot pay his opponent, the game ends on the spot and the remaining seeds are awarded to the player who moved last
- otherwise each player receives the seeds that are left in his holes after each player has passed
The player who got the most seeds wins. If both players captured the same number, the game is a draw.
External Links
Copyright
© Ralf Gering
Under the CC by-sa 2.5 license.