Fanorona

Fanorona is played on a 5×9 intersection grid. You play dark pieces; the AI plays light. Dark moves first.

1. Select one of your pieces (dark), then click an adjacent empty intersection to move it.
2. Approach capture: move your piece toward an enemy - all consecutive enemy pieces in that direction are removed.
3. Withdrawal capture: move your piece away from an enemy - all consecutive enemy pieces behind your starting position are removed.
4. If a capture is available anywhere on the board, you must capture. A non-capturing move (Paika) is only allowed when no captures exist.
5. Capture chains: after capturing, the same piece may continue capturing in a new direction. You cannot revisit an intersection or reverse direction within one turn. Click anywhere non-valid to end your chain early.
6. The marked intersections (the worn hollows where the diagonal lines cross) are "strong points" - pieces here can move diagonally as well as orthogonally.
7. The player who captures all of their opponent's pieces wins.

Full rules guide & cultural history →

Fanorona is the national game of Madagascar, played on a lattice of 45 intersections arranged 9 by 5 - in effect two alquerque boards joined edge to edge. Its signature move is found nowhere else: a piece captures both by advancing toward an enemy line and by withdrawing away from one, your choice. Boards turn up carved into rosewood, scratched into schoolyard dirt, and incised into the granite of the sacred highland hills - the Alasora rock engraving dates to roughly 1500-1600, and a fanorona board is cut into the Ambatomiantendro lookout boulder at the UNESCO-listed royal hill of Ambohimanga.

The most famous legend is the telo noho dimy - "three against five." Prince Andriantompokoindrindra is said to have lost his claim to the Merina throne because, summoned by his father along with his brothers, he refused to leave a notoriously stubborn three-against-five endgame; his younger brother arrived first, and went on to found Antananarivo. The 3-vs-5 position is still spoken of as the proverbial fanorona problem.

The game carried real royal weight. King Andrianampoinimerina's own fanorona board is preserved in the palace at Ambohimanga. Legend has it that when France invaded in 1895, Queen Ranavalona III placed more faith in a ritual game of fanorona than in her army - a story told as legend rather than documented history. An old Malagasy saying captures the game's pull: chatting wastes the day, but fanorona makes you forget your duty altogether.

Today fanorona is thoroughly alive. Street matches draw rings of commentators a stone's throw from the presidential palace, the Ministry of Culture runs a national championship, and in 2007-08 researchers at Maastricht University weakly solved the game, proving that perfect play by both sides ends in a draw.