The Egg Carton Game

The Egg Carton Game is a two-player strategy game that can either be played against another player or an AI opponent which has three difficulty settings.

The game itself similar to Mancala, that game traditionally uses seeds or stones in pits while this game uses marbles in the wells of an egg carton, but the object is the same in as each player tries to clear all the marbles from their side of the game area. The game area is similar too with each side having six slots and right and left ‘end slots that marbles can be played into but cannot be played out of.

Each player in turn selects a slot and the marbles in it are removed and distributed around the board in an anticlockwise direction, for example if slot ‘x’ contained three marbles then it would be emptied and one marble would be placed in cell ‘x+1’, the second in cell ‘x+2’ and the third in cell ‘x+3’. Choosing the right cell is important because the strategy element depends upon the last cell into which a marble is played:* If the last marble drops off the board the player must choose a cell on their side of the board from which to make another move.

• If the last marble goes into a cell that has one or more marbles in it, all the marbles from that cell (including the one just dropped there) are removed and distributed counter-clockwise from that point.

• If the last cell into which a marble is dropped was EMPTY the player's turn is over and the opponent's turn begins.

The game plays in a non-resizeable window and has neither a save game facility or any game statistics.