Rainbow Mancala 2025

Rainbow Mancala is a two-player combinatorial sowing game played with 48 seeds, eight in each of six colors, on a Mancala board having two rows of six holes with storehouses at each end.

Games in the Mancala family usually have indistinguishable seeds, but sowing games with distinguishable seeds, while uncommon, are not new. A few examples are listed in the prior work section of the rules document. The mechanisms of Rainbow Mancala mostly also follow precedents set in other traditional sowing games. However, new to Rainbow Mancala, at least as far as the authors know, are non-transitive strength cycles (as in Rock-Paper-Scissors) for harvesting the distinguishable seeds, as well as player choice of whether or not to harvest a second seed (if one is available).

—description from the designer