SoK/2025/StatusReport/Rishav Ray Chaudhury

Games: Add a Mancala Game to Mankala Engine

Project Abstract

The aim is to implement the game Kalah, a North American variant of the Mancala family of games. It involves sowing and capturing of beans. Also, a new move selection algorithm. Compared to the previously implemented Oware and Bohnenspiel, Kalah is played with 6 beans and also sows in the Kalah. Also, in case the bean is sowed in the Kalah, the player gets a second turn.

Mentors

Benson Muite, João Gouveia

Timeline

Weeks 1-4

For the first couple of weeks, I went through the codebase and understood how the files are implemented. I started writing game during this time.

Weeks 5-8

I wrote the tests, implemented the TUI and wrote the greedy move selection algorithm.

Weeks 9-10

I couldn't get much done due to college exams.

Weeks 11-12

I wrote a script to benchmark the available games with the various algorithms.

TODO

Some tests are still failing for the Kalah game. I'll fix them after the duration of the SoK. The problem seemingly arises from the different indexing of the board holes.

Blog

My blog can be found here.