← Back to the Katondogorozi dictionary

Orusoro also known as Omweso, Okwesa

A Runyoro-Rutooro name for one of Uganda's oldest board games — sixty-four seeds, thirty-two holes, and a relay of captures that can turn a game in one move.

Player 2 0 captured
Player 1 0 captured

Player 1's turn — pick a hole with 2 or more seeds.

Move 1

How orusoro is played

  1. Opponent: play against another human on this device (pass-and-play), or against the computer.
  2. Setup (okuteekaniza): each player picks a starting arrangement — the traditional default (4 in each back-row hole), a named grouping (like Nyakasangu or Nyakabiri, each fixing one hole at a specific count with the rest for you to arrange), or a fully free arrangement.
  3. Movement: also choose how you make your own moves — computer-assisted (pick a hole, the whole relay/capture chain plays out automatically) or manual (click each hole yourself, closer to moving the seeds with your own hand).
  4. Pick a hole on your own side with two or more seeds in it. Your side is always the two rows closest to you.
  5. Sowing (okusora): those seeds are dropped one by one into the following holes, moving anticlockwise around the whole board.
  6. Relay: if your last seed lands in a hole that already had seeds in it, you pick up everything now in that hole and keep going from the next one — a single turn can loop the board several times.
  7. Capturing (hamba): if your last seed lands in your own front row (the row facing your opponent), and your opponent has seeds in both their front and back hole in that same column, you capture both holes. Those captured seeds join your hand and the relay continues — captures can chain.
  8. Reverse moves (garanjuka): instead of sowing forward, you can sow backward from one of your four corner holes (the last two holes of each of your own rows, on your own left) — a "Reverse move" button appears whenever one is actually available. Only legal if it's certain to capture immediately; pick how many seeds to use (up to 9) if more than one count would work. After the reverse capture chain ends, play resumes forward from beside where it began — same relay and capture rules from there on.
  9. Turns alternate. A move ends the moment your last seed lands in a hole that was empty, with no capture triggered.
  10. Winning: if it's your turn and you have no legal move — no hole with two or more seeds to sow forward, and no reverse move available either — you lose.
  11. Winning by double score (okutema): if your opponent has counters in both pairs of their two extreme corner holes at once (called having "two heads"), capturing both pairs in one move wins the game outright, right then — even if your opponent would otherwise still have a legal move left.
  12. Winning by a full sweep (akakaikuru): capturing every single one of your opponent's counters within one move's relay/capture chain wins immediately too, with special recognition for the rare feat.

About the computer opponent

It simulates every legal move available to it — ordinary forward moves and reverse moves alike — and plays the best-scoring one, capturing whenever it can and mildly avoiding moves that leave its own side newly exposed. It does not look further ahead than that one move, so it won't spot a trap that costs it two moves from now. It will always take an outright win when one is available — okutema or akakaikuru — over any other option, which makes it noticeably more dangerous than a purely capture-greedy opponent, since it actively hunts for those specifically rather than stumbling into them. Ties between equally good moves are broken randomly, so it won't play identically every time.

More from the traditional rules

Documented here for the full picture, since they're genuinely part of how the game is played — but not yet implemented as playable mechanics.

Game over

Player 1 wins

Before you start

Who are you playing against?

Either way, you'll set up your own opening first.

Playing remotely

Create a game, or join one?

Joining a game

Enter the room code

Ask whoever created the game for their code.

Playing remotely

Waiting…

Waiting…

Player 1 — choose your opening

Pick a starting arrangement

Traditionally each side freely arranges their own 32 counters before play begins. The default is 4 counters in each back-row hole with the front row empty — pick one of the named strategic patterns instead, or arrange your own from scratch.

How do you want to make your moves?

Player 1 — arrange your own seeds

Place all 32 seeds in your own holes

Click a hole to add a seed from your tray. Your front row faces your opponent; your back row is behind it. If you picked a named grouping, its big hole is already filled and locked — the rest is yours to place.

32 seeds left in your tray

Front row (faces your opponent)

Back row