Twenty-four points, twelve cows each, two people. Get three of your cows in a row and you have a mill. Every mill lets you shoot one of your opponent's cows off the board. Shoot them down to two and you have won.
The same rules as the ones written below. No account, and nothing is kept. Your cows are the pale ones and you place first.
The board starts empty. Each player has twelve cows to place.
Three squares, one inside another, with 24 points on them: the corners and the middle of each side. Lines run along the sides of every square, across from the middle of one square's side to the next, and diagonally from corner to corner. Each player has twelve cows. The board starts empty.
Take turns putting one cow on any empty point. Keep going until both of you have placed all twelve.
A mill is three of your own cows in a row on one line. There are 20 lines on the board, and the corner diagonals count. You can make a mill while you are placing and again once you are moving.
Each time you make a mill, take one of your opponent's cows off the board. It does not come back. A cow that is in a mill is safe, unless every cow your opponent has is in a mill, and then you may shoot any of them. One cow that completes two mills at once still earns one shot. Then the turn passes.
When all the cows have been placed, take turns moving one of your cows along a line to the next point, if it is empty. You may move a cow out of a mill and back in on a later turn. That makes the mill again, and you shoot again.
A player with exactly three cows left may move a cow to any empty point on the board, not only to the next one along a line.
You win when your opponent is down to two cows, or when it is their turn to move and they have no legal move. The game is a draw if 60 moves in a row, counting both players, go by without a mill. It is also a draw if nobody was shot during placing, so all 24 points are full and no cow can move.
Morabaraba is played across South Africa, Lesotho and Botswana. The pieces are called cows. In South Africa it is a recognised mind sport with national championships.
It is not played the same way everywhere. Some players do not let you break a mill and make the same one again straight away. Our tables have no such rule, and the 60-move draw is what stops a game going round in circles. If you learned it differently, you were not taught wrong. These are the rules our tables use, so that two people who have never met can sit down and agree.
Morabaraba is one of the games in the Arcade.