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Kalah is an ancient board game that requires two players. The rules are easy to pick up, but playing the game is anything from easy. The board used is of a simple design as in the early days, it is claimed, the game was played in roughly marked pits hollowed out in the sand.

The playing area of the board therefore has the appearance of a rectangular box made up of two lines of six shallow pits with a larger pit at both ends called the 'kalahs'.

At the start of the game each of the twelve pits (but not the larger kalahs) is filled with the same number of pebbles or stones. Say two stones for example, in each of the twelve pits. The stones/objects in the pits are neutral as they do not belong to any particular player. Each player controls the line of pits on his side of the board, and owns the kalah on his right. Now to the game itself.

The object of the game is to collect more than half of the stones in your own kalah (that is the larger pit to the right of the board), by moving the stones in your pits in an anti-clockwise fashion around the rectangular rows of pits. There are three simple rules that govern the way in which the stones are moved.

The instructions provided are very clear and provide simple diagrams showing the typical moves that could be made. The game has a demonstration mode where a series of games are played automatically. There are nine levels of skill which dictate the speed and the 'intelligence' of the program's moves. You can select the number of stones to have in each pit (3-6), whether you want the first move or whether music is played during the computer's move. Some of the features include a clock for each player, an information screen, lookahead, replay last move, swap sides and quit.