Ayo Across The World: Ayo & Obridje (Nigeria)

Jul 1

How To Play: Ayo

Sowing Seeds:

The first player selects a cup from their own territory and scoops all of its seeds. The player will then “sow” or distribute one seed into each cup, moving in a counter clock direction. Do not place seeds in the end pockets. If the last seed is sown into a cup filled with seeds, the player must scoop up all the contents of that cup and continue to sow each seed until the last seed ends in an empty cup. When this happens, it will be the opposing player’s turn.

Capturing Seeds:

A player captures a seed when the last seed is dropped into an empty cup in their own territory. If the facing cup on their opponent’s territory contains seeds, the player will capture those seeds as well. If there are no seeds in that opposite cup, the player will not capture any seeds.

Also, if the player's last seed is sown into an empty cup in their opponent’s territory, and the facing cup in their own territory is empty as well, no seeds will be captured.

End of Game:

The game comes to an end when1 player has captured 25 seeds or more OR there are only 1 seed on each territory of the board OR too few seeds are left to make a challenging move.

More Ways to Play

During the game, if a player runs out of seeds in their own territory, the opposing player must sow seeds from a cup that would provide seeds for the other player to continue playing. If such a play is not possible, the game ends and the remaining seeds on the board goes to the player with seeds remaining in their territory.

Try This for More Fun

If one of the players sows enough seeds to make a full return to the original cup, that player can pass over the empty cup and continue to sow the seeds in their hand until the last one is distributed.

How To Play: Obridje

Sowing Seeds:

The first player selects a cup from their own territory and scoops all of its seeds. The player will then “sow” or distribute one seed into each cup, moving in a counter clock direction. Do not place seeds in the end pockets. If the last seed is sown into a cup filled with seeds, the player must scoop up all the contents of that cup and continue to sow each seed until the last seed is sown into an empty cup OR if the last seed is dropped in a cup of 3 seeds, making a total of 4 seeds. After this, it will be the opposing player’s turn.

Capturing Seeds:

A player can capture seeds at any point of the game when any cup from any territory has 4 seeds in it. This goes quickly because as one player is sowing seeds, the opposing player can simultaneously capture 4-seed cups from their own territory, even if there are more than one cup containing 4 seeds in their own territory.

End of Game:

There are many ways to end the game: A player drops the last seed into an empty cup OR drops the last seed into a cup to make a group of 4 OR there are less than 4 seeds left on the board.

More ways to play:

When there are just a few seeds left, the players can continue to take turns going around and agree to end the game at their own discretion. The winner will be the one who has captured more seeds.