Yote is a two-player game of strategy from West Africa. The game has a unique double-capture move which allows for change of fortunes pretty quickly in the game. The game is played on a 6x5 board. Both players start with twelve pieces of their distinct color (BLACK or, WHITE) which are placed outside the board. The aim is to capture all of opponents' pieces to win. WHITE starts first.
In the first turn each player places one piece on the board. In subsequent turns they can do one of the following
- Place a piece in hand on any empty cell of the board.
- Move one of their pieces already on the board horizontally or vertically (orthogonally) to an empty adjacent cell.
- Capture an opponent piece by horizontally or vertically jumping over it to the empty cell immediately beyond it. The captured piece is removed from the board, and the capturing player must remove another of the opponent's pieces of his choosing from the board if opponent has one or more pieces left on the board.
Capturing is not mandatory and multiple capturing jumps are not allowed. A piece can not move to the position of its previous turn except when capturing (to avoid making back and forth moves in case of a stalemate).
The player capturing all of his/her opponent's pieces wins the game. If both players are left with three or fewer pieces, then the game is declared a draw.