Play Fanorona, the national board game of Madagascar, free in your browser. Move along the 5×9 alquerque board and capture enemy lines by approach or withdrawal — capture is mandatory and each turn takes one line. Strategy vs AI, no download required.
Fanorona is the national board game of Madagascar, traditionally played on the fanoron-tsivy — a grid of five rows and nine columns, forty-five points in all. The points are linked in an alquerque pattern: every point joins its orthogonal neighbours, and the 'strong' points, where the row and column add to an even number, also carry diagonals, drawing the board's familiar X shapes. Each side starts with twenty-two pieces filling its half, with the single central point left empty. White moves first, and the whole struggle revolves around capturing the opponent's stones along these straight lines.
Captures in Fanorona never work by jumping. Instead you slide a piece one step to an empty point and remove an enemy line in one of two directions. An approach capture moves your piece toward the enemy: the opposing stone sitting just beyond your landing point is taken, along with every enemy that continues in a straight line behind it. A withdrawal capture is the mirror image — you move away from the enemy, and the stone sitting just behind your starting point is taken, together with its line. A single step can sometimes threaten both ways, and then you choose which line to clear.
Capturing is compulsory. As long as any capturing move exists on the board you must make one; the quiet non-capturing move, called paika, is only legal when no capture is available. Full traditional Fanorona lets the same piece keep capturing in a long chain, but this browser version uses the well-known one-capture-per-turn simplification: a turn is a single move that clears exactly one straight enemy line, by approach or withdrawal, with no continuation. That keeps every position easy to read and free of soft-locks while preserving the heart of the game — the two capture directions and the duty to take material.
Because capture is forced, you can steer the game by offering lines you want your opponent to take and avoiding moves that hand them a long row. Watch both directions before you commit, since a quiet-looking step often clears a whole line by approach or withdrawal. Count what each capture removes and prefer the move that takes the most stones or breaks up the enemy's formation. Choose White to move first or Black to react, then play against a computer opponent that searches ahead for material and mobility. Capture every enemy piece, or block the AI so it has no move, to win.
Fanorona is the national board game of Madagascar, played on a 5×9 grid of forty-five points known as the fanoron-tsivy. Two armies of twenty-two pieces fight to capture all of the opponent's stones.
There are two capture methods. Approach moves a piece toward an enemy line so the stone just beyond your landing point is taken; withdrawal moves a piece away from an enemy line so the stone just behind your starting point is taken. Each consecutive enemy in that direction is removed too.
Yes. Whenever a capturing move exists you must play one. The quiet non-capturing move, called paika, is only allowed when no capture is available anywhere on the board.
This version uses the popular one-capture-per-turn simplification. A turn is a single move that takes one straight enemy line by approach or withdrawal, with no chained continuation, which keeps every position clear and decisive.
You win by capturing all of your opponent's pieces. A player who has no legal move on their turn also loses, so a full blockade ends the game in your favour.