PSPMancala

PSP-Mancala
General
Author	Zx-81
Type	Board
Version	1.1.0
License	GNU GPLv2
Last Updated	2009/11/07
Links
Download
Website
Source

PSP-Mancala is a homebrew Mancala board game. Originated in East Africa, Mancala is a generic name for a two-player turn based stratey board game played with small stones or seeds (the word Mancala came from Arabic word Naqalah which literally means To Move).

This homebrew is the Awari variant from the board game familly of Mancala. While the rule of this game is simple, the complexity can be compared to Chess Game.

Installation

Unzip the ZIP file, and copy the folder pspmancala to ms0:/PSP/GAME/.

User guide

AWARI Rules (vu.nl):

Awari is played on a board where each player owns 6 pits. In the initial position, all pits are filled with four stones, thus the initial position has 48 stones.

The player to move chooses one of its own, non-empty pits and removes all stones from the pit. The player then sows the stones, counterclockwise, over the remaining pits, skipping the original pit if there are more than 11 stones to sow.

If the last stone is sown into an enemy pit that contains 2 or 3 stones after sowing, the stones are captured. In this case, if the second last pit is also an enemy pit that contains 2 or 3 stones, they are captured as well, and this process is repeated clockwise, until the own pit, or an enemy pit containing less than 2 or more than 3 stones is reached.

The player who captures most stones, wins the game. The game ends when a player cannot move, however, to avoid such a situation early in the game, it is not allowed to do a move that leaves the opponent without countermove, unless all moves eradicate the opponent.

Mancala Rules (Compendia):

Mancala is played on a board where each player owns 6 pits. In the initial position, all pits are filled with four stones, thus the initial position has 48 stones. Take it in turns to sow the stones around the board, including your own store but skipping your opponent's. If the last seed that you sow goes into the store you get another turn.

The store is placed on the right of each player, but it is not visible in PSPMancala. The content of the store is displayed in the score status line.If the last seed you sow ends in an empty pot on your side of the board you capture that seed and all the stones in your opponents pot opposite. Put all these stones in your store.

The game ends when one player clears all the pots on their side of the board. All the stones left on the other side of the board are now theirs to count, so don't let the other player clear their side of the board. The player with the most stones in his store wins.

Controls

Cross - Valid

D-Pad - Move on the board

Select - PSPMancala menu

Screenshots

Compatibility

Tested by the developer with Firmware 5.0-M33 and should work with any 3.x/4.x/5.x compatible firmwares.

Changelog

v1.1.0

• New graphics and eboot icons.
• Add music from latest album of NeXuS (Phenom) http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/51921.
• Bug fix in AI (now it is much stronger).

v1.0.3

• Compatible with custom 3.x firmwares (hopefully with PSP slim).
• New graphics and eboot icons.
• Add Intro Splash screen.
• Support iso8859-1 fonts in print text functions (might be useful to translate menus in german, french).

v1.0.2

• We can now play two mancala variants (common Mancala and Awari).
• The IA has been modified and should be stronger now.
• Final score is now properly computed.
• Small bug fix.

v1.0.1

• Intial release.

Credits

AI MiniMax by H. Huseby & G.T. Lines.

PSP-Mancala (PSP version) by Ludovic Jacomme.

External links

• Author's website - http://zx81.zx81.free.fr/serendipity/index.php?/archives/407-PSPMancala-Mancala-Game-for-the-PSP-v1.1.0.html
• QuickJump - http://forums.qj.net/zx-81s-homebrew-releases/160639-pspmancala-mancala-game-psp-v1-1-0-a.html