Baobab Ring Takes

Livewelly

About this app

A quiet board scratched into sun-baked earth, two hands full of counters, and one rule that turns every exchange upside down.

Baobab Ring Takes is an abstract strategy board game for one player against a carved-wood opponent. The board is five squares across and six deep, and it starts completely empty. Every counter you own begins in your hand.

THE DOUBLE TAKE
Hop one of your counters over an enemy counter into the empty square directly beyond, and that counter comes off the board. Then you also lift any one other enemy counter, from anywhere at all. One jump, two men gone. Choosing that second counter is usually the harder half of the move: take the one holding their shape together, not the one nearest your hand. Before you commit, the board tells you exactly how much freedom each choice would cost them.

A DROP PHASE THAT NEVER PAUSES THE FIGHT
Nobody sets up. On any turn you may place a fresh counter from your hand onto any free square instead of moving one already out there. Because both sides keep dropping while the capturing is already under way, the board fills up in the middle of the battle, and a full hand is a reserve and a threat at the same time.

WHAT IS INSIDE
- Five tabs: Play, Stats, Levels, How and Awards
- Three opponents: a random-playing apprentice, a one-move carver, and an elder that searches three moves deep with alpha-beta pruning
- Hands of eight, ten or twelve counters
- Choose who opens, or alternate the opening every match
- An illustrated explainer of the drop phase, the hop and the double take
- A ledger that remembers wins, men taken per match, second takes claimed and your longest drop phase
- Eleven carvings to earn along the way

BUILT TO BE LEFT ALONE
It plays entirely offline. No internet connection, no account, no adverts, no analytics, no in-app purchases, and no sound at all. There is only the board, drawn as flat carved shapes in ochre earth, bone and dark wood. Your progress is stored on the device and survives a restart.

No gambling, no wagering, no chips and no real-money anything. This is a wooden board game with counters, and nothing else.