GEBETA (ገበጣ)

Traditional Ethiopian/Habeshan game with Python, OpenGL and PyGame

Introduction

Gebeta is one of the oldest and a subset of the family board games also known as mancala games. It is a traditional mancala game played by the people living along the border of Ethiopia and Sudan.

Generally, the mancala games are a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces. Versions of the game date back to the 7th century and evidence suggests the game existed in Ancient Egypt. It is among the oldest known games to still be widely played today.

Gebeta is also known as Alemungula particulary in the Eastern part of Ethiopia. The name "Alemungula" is specifically used by the Wataweat people of the Asosa-Beni Sangul area, while essentially the same game is called Um el Bagara by the Baggara people of Sudan. Another name used in Sudan for the same game is Mangala. For the muslim people of the Sudan-Ethiopian border, Alemungula/Um el Bagara is a typical game to play in the day hours during Ramadan.

General Gameplay

Most mancala games share a common general gameplay. Players begin by placing a certain number of seeds, prescribed for the particular game, in each of the pits on the game board. A player may count their stones to plot the game. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, "sowing" the seeds (placing one in each of the following pits in sequence) and capturing based on the state of the board. The object of the game is to plant the most seeds in the bank. This leads to the English phrase "count and capture" sometimes used to describe the gameplay. Although the details differ greatly, this general sequence applies to all games.

For the particular mancala game called Gebeta, once a player ends up their turn by making one of the pits on their own sides containing exactly four seeds (the count phase), they capture all these pieces. Once captured, the player gets to put the seeds in their own bank. After capturing, the opponent forfeits a turn. This continues until all the seeds end up on the either side of the board. In which case, the player having all the remaining seeds captures all of them and return them to his bank. The winner is the player having more number of seeds in his bank

Contributors

1. Petros Beyene Mola - UGR/1308/12 - Section 1
2. Abdulkarim Getachew Mohammed - UGR/7992/12 - Section 1

References

For more information about the game:

1. Wikipedia - Mancala
2. WIkipedia - Alemungula