Rules & Settings
Everything the game enforces on the board, and every preference you can change around it — in one place.
How to Play
The board. 14 pits, 7 in your row and 7 in your opponent's. Each pit starts with 5 seeds — 70 in total. The trays above and below the board are capture stores, where seeds you win are kept.
Pick a pit. On your turn, tap any of your own pits that has at least one seed.
Sow. Every seed from that pit is picked up and dropped one at a time into each following pit, moving in one direction around the whole board — through your opponent's pits too.
Keep going on a full pit. After the last seed is dropped, if the very next pit has seeds, pick all of them up too and keep sowing forward. Keep going until you reach a pit that's empty.
Capture on an empty landing. Once you stop at an empty pit, look at the pit just after it. If it has seeds, capture all of them into your store. If it's also empty, no capture happens and it becomes your opponent's turn.
Win by starving your opponent. A player who can no longer fund a single pit at the start of a round has run out of seeds and loses. The other player wins.
Board Flow
The board is one continuous loop of 14 pits, always sown in the same direction:
- Your row — left to right, pit 1 through pit 7.
- Up and across into your opponent's row at their far pit.
- Opponent's row — right to left, back toward pit 1.
- Down and across back into your row's first pit, looping forever.
Sowing always crosses through both rows — there's no separate "safe" private lane. Any pit, yours or your opponent's, can end up holding the seed that gets captured next.
Four-Seed Capture (optional rule)
Switched on or off from New Game setup or Settings. This is Pallankuzhi's best-known house variant, and different families play it differently — Kuzhi 1 ships it off by default so the base game matches the rules above exactly, with this available as a toggle.
Any of your own pits that reaches exactly 4 seeds can be tapped to instantly capture those 4 seeds into your store.
This can happen on your own turn or mid-sow while seeds are still being dropped — and even when it isn't your turn.
If a pit climbs past 4 without being tapped, the chance is gone until it happens to land on exactly 4 again.
Fixed Rules
Not switches — these apply every game.
Each of the 14 pits starts a fresh game with 5 seeds — 70 seeds in total.
At the start of a new round, captured seeds refill each player's row, 5 per pit — as many as you can afford.
A pit that couldn't be refilled is dimmed for that round — it can't be selected and is skipped entirely while sowing.
When a player has no seeds left in their own row, the round ends and any seeds still in the other player's pits are swept into that player's store.
Coin Styles
Purely cosmetic — changes what the seeds look like, no effect on any rule. Chosen from Settings, any time.
Cowrie Shells (default)
Tamarind Seeds
App Settings
Everything in the Settings panel, grouped the way it's grouped there.
New Game
- Game Mode
- Vs CPU, Two Players (pass & play), or Online (room code).
- Player names
- Free-text names for each seat, shown on-screen and to an online opponent.
- Starting player
- Choose who takes the first turn (Vs CPU / Two Players only).
- Four-seed capture
- On or off for that game — see above.
Preferences
- Sound Effects
- Sowing, capture, and other in-game sound effects.
- Background Music
- An ambient music track under the board.
- Haptics
- Vibration feedback on sows and captures, on supported devices.
- Coin Animation Speed
- Adjustable from half speed to double speed — 1x is normal.
- Coin Style
- Cowrie shells or tamarind seeds.
Data
- Reset Statistics
- Clears locally stored games/wins/losses/captures. Cannot be undone.