NAME

       mancala - simple board game for human player and computer

SYNOPSIS

       mancala level-top level-bottom number-of-stones
       xmancala [-stones N]
       mancala-text

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual  page documents briefly the mancala and xmancala commands.  This manual page was written for
       the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page.

       mancala runs the game in the console, while xmancala is a fancy X-interface.   mancala-text  is  a  shell
       script to run mancala in a console from the Debian menu system.

       When  run  as  xmancala the program has no options, and should be self-explanatory.  Built in buttons and
       sliders control the difficulty level (default 4), and bring up the rules of the game.

       The console version, mancala, has no access to the rules, and the difficulty level can only be set on the
       command line (see below).  When it is your turn to play, you enter the letter of the cell that  you  want
       to   move  the  stones  from,  A  to  F  (case  insensitive).   The  rules  are  contained  in  the  file
       /usr/share/doc/mancala/RULES.

OPTIONS

       When run as mancala, the program normally takes two arguments, level-top and level-bottom, one  of  which
       should  be  0  to  represent  the  human  player  (you),  and the other should be in the range 1 to 9, to
       represent the skill level of the computer player.  The first argument  represents  the  top  player,  who
       starts.

       Alternatively,  you  can  give a single argument or two non-zero arguments, to watch the computer playing
       itself, or two zero arguments, to play against another human player on the same console.

       For the console version, you can add a third argument to specify the  number  of  stones  per  hole.  For
       xmancala you can specify the number of stones per hole using the -stones N argument.

       On  Debian systems, the shell script mancala-text is provided to facilitate running mancala in a console,
       from the Debian menu system.  This script will run mancala with a difficulty level of 4, and  will  pause
       when the game is finished, to enable the player to view the final screen.

SEE ALSO

       <http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala>

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Andrew Gray <ajpg@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be
       used by others).  The program was written by Sverre H. Huseby and Glenn T. Lines.

                                                  13 March 2001                                       MANCALA(6)