Mandarin Squares

How to play

Take more stones than the other player. A small stone is worth 1 point. A mandarin is worth 10, or 5 if you choose that in the options.

Players take turns. At the start you pick who goes first, and the opener swaps each round. Your five squares are the row nearest you.

1. Tap one of your squares with stones in it, then tap the square beside it on the side you want to sow towards.
2. You pick up every stone in that square and drop them one at a time into the next squares, going round the board.
3. After your last stone, look at the next square. If it is a citizen square with stones, pick them up and keep sowing. Any mandarin square, empty or not, ends your turn.
4. If the next square is empty and the one after it has stones, you take those stones. If the square after that is empty again and the next has stones, you take those too.
5. Small mandarins safe: while its big stone remains, a mandarin square with fewer than 5 small stones cannot be captured. You can turn this rule off in Options.
6. Two empty citizen squares in a row end your turn.
7. If all five of your squares are empty on your turn, put one captured stone into each. If you have fewer than five, borrow the shortfall from the other player and repay it in the final score. The round ends only if you cannot supply five together.
8. When both mandarin squares are completely empty, the round ends. Each player takes the small stones left in their own row, and the higher score wins.

Play with a friend

1. Open Recess and choose Mandarin Squares.
2. Tap With a friend. Your table gets a code.
3. Send your friend the code or the link. They join from a browser or the app.

Questions

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