Chowka Bhara

Each player has four pawns waiting beside their edge of the board. Throw the four cowries: the number that land mouth up is your move. All four up is chowka (4), all four down is bhara (8). A 4 or 8 earns another throw, and so does every hit. You can take an earned throw straight away or move first, whichever you like.

Careful with 4s and 8s: holding three from a row loses everything left in your turn. Spending one lowers the count, and a 1, 2 or 3 resets it. With two held, you can skip the next throw and play what you have.

Spend each throw on a pawn or pair, in any order. You can start all four pawns on your home square (the crossed square on your edge), or spend a 4 or 8 to enter all four waiting pawns together or one at a time, depending on the setup choice. Once in, a pawn stays in. If none of your remaining throws can move a pawn, your moves from that turn are undone.

Pawns race anticlockwise round the outer ring. Landing on an opponent's pawn sends it back to its home square, where it starts its lap again, and earns you another throw. The crossed squares and the centre are safe. Until you've hit someone, your pawns can go no further than the square before your home square. After your first hit, they turn into the inner ring there, go round it clockwise, and finish in the centre by exact count.

On the outer ring your own pawns can share only the safe squares. In the inner ring, two of your pawns may sit together on a square, and an opponent landing there knocks out just one. Two pawns meeting on your first inner square, the one just inside your last outer square, can become a pair. Their dotted chalk circle means they are still vulnerable singles. Move one alone to split them, or move them together to commit the pair and make the circle solid. A committed pair always moves together at half the throw (2, 4 and 8 move it 1, 2 and 4 squares). An opponent's single must land exactly on the committed pair's square before moving past it. Your own singles can land there or move past freely, and your pair can land on your own singles. Only a pair can hit a pair; a pair landing on lone pawns just shares the square with them. First to bring all four pawns to the centre wins. In the rare case that nobody can move at all, the game is a draw.

In games with three or four players, you can offer a short truce against a clear leader. Allies try to avoid hitting each other, but may break their word. A hit on an ally can be part of a relay when its bonus throw has a real chance to hit the leader. Recent betrayals make another truce less likely.