mancal the board game mancala is at least , years oldmaking it almost as old as project "royal game of ur it is "seed-sowinggame in which two players select pockets of seeds to spread across the other pockets on the board while trying to collect as many in their store as possible there are several variants of this game across different cultures the name comes from the arab word naqalameaning "to move to playgrab the seeds from pit on your side of the board and place one in each subsequent pitgoing counterclockwise and skipping your opponent' store if your last seed lands in an empty pit of yoursmove the opposite pit' seeds into that pit if the last placed seed is in your storeyou get free turn