The Help Force

Welcome to another post of the series CP Knowledge. This is a series where I will talk about every single minigame on Club Penguin, continuing today with Mancala. The posts include how you play the game, its history, stamps, trivia, high scores, and a personal review of the game! Hope you enjoy it!

GAMEPLAY

Mancala is one of the nine multiplayer minigames in Club Penguin and is accessible via the Book Room. Two players are needed to play this strategy and counting game. It is based on the real-life game called, surprise surprise, Mancala. To win a game of Mancala you’ll have to collect more stones than your opponent. The game board is composed of twelve smaller holes parallel to each other. There are also two bigger ones, known as the Mancalas on each short side. The six holes nearest to you and the Mancala on your right, belong to you. All holes – except the Mancalas – contain four stones.

   When it’s your turn, simply click on one of the groups of stones. They will then drop one by one in the holes around the board, going in an anticlockwise direction. The stones will drop in your Mancala, but not your opponent’s. There are alternating turns, but if the last stone lands in your Mancala you will get an extra turn. There’s also a thing called captures, this is where the heavy strategy comes in. If the last stone ends in an empty hole on your side, you’ll capture all of the stones from your opponent’s directly opposite hole. you will also get your own stone that landed there. The game ends when one player has cleared their side from stones. The winner is then the penguin with most in their Mancala plus any remainings on their side. 

HISTORY

Mancala’s real history is believed to go back over 7000 years. Unfortunately, Club Penguin hasn’t existed that long. However, Mancala is one of the five original games on Club Penguin, but its CP history dates back to December 2, 2000. How? Club Penguin’s creator Lance Priebe, more known as Rsnail, is also the creator of RocketSnail Games. On that website, he created Mancala Snails and released it on December 2, 2000. The game has since had a few updates containing a harder difficulty level and a classic version.

   On July 10, 2005, the beta testing for Mancala in Penguin Chat 3 – Club Penguin’s predecessor, begun. It was originally located in the Coffee Shop but got moved to the Book Room on August 24, 2005. Between November 2005 and February 2006, there was also a Mancala game in the HQ. According to issue 41 of The Penguin Times, Mancala used to be played outdoors in the snow with pebbles.

   As for Club Penguin Rewritten history, the game was removed for bug fixing on September 25, 2017. It wasn’t added back until Christmas Eve the next year. It is currently in development due to CPR’s switch to HTML5. 

COINS

Mancala is one of the worst – if not the worst – games for earning coins. It’s more of a “have some fun with a friend” type of game. The amount of coins you get depends on how many of the 48 stones you collected. If you collected 28, you get 28 coins and so on. Seeing as a game of Mancala usually takes about two minutes, it has a terrible coin per minute ratio. 

TRIVIA

• It is Rockhopper’s favourite game.
• During April’s Fools Party 2020, there was a playable Mancala board in the Town. 
• It was voted “Game of the Year” for 2006 in The Penguin Times. 
• During beta testing, there were four Mancala tables. Sometime between the Beta Test Party and Club Penguin’s official launch, another one was added. After the remodel of The Journey (Club Penguin’s third generation, 2012 – 2017) in 2012, one table was removed again. 
• An actual replica of the Mancala board was sold in the Disney Store in 2008. 
• There was a Mancala pin hidden in August 2016. 
• Mancala, Puffle Roundup and Sled racing are the only minigames to have been moved to a different room after release.
• There is a Club Penguin comic featuring two penguins playing Mancala. One of the penguins puts down a stone and yells “CHECKMATE!!”. The other penguin then says “You don’t even know how to play Mancala, do you?”. The penguin then looks up and says “Manwhatta?”
• Just like Find Four and Treasure Hunt, a third penguin can join and watch the game. 

PERSONAL REVIEW

When I log onto Club Penguin, I don’t think I’ve ever gone “Ooh let’s play some Mancala!”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice game and all, but I prefer to play the actual game, you know, in real life. On top of that, the game is awful for making money. Therefore, this will tie for my lowest-rated game, earning a 5.5/10 score. The other game is Hydro Hopper, which I think is less fun, but better in terms of earning coins.  

Did I miss anything? What do you think of Mancala? Comment below!

That’s all for me today, hope you enjoyed this post! See ya next time!

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