Mamba

Credits:The author of Mamba is Cristophe Berg; images used with permission. Links to the official Mamba website, and to a retail seller of the game, are given in the Resources section.

Here is the first version of my Mamba applet. There is currently no network support (i.e., you can only play a local game), and the "Help" menu item is inactive. Network support is currently under active development.

Important: I think that the rules are implemented properly, but I may have made a mistake somewhere. If you find something that you think is incorrect, please let me know so I can investigate and correct it.

Note: this applet has been tested on Linux (Mozilla) and Windows (Internet Explorer and Netscape 6.1) using the Java Plug-in, version 1.4.2. Some difficulties may be experienced with earlier versions of Java. Need Java? Go here and click "Get it now" (should be in the upper right-hand corner of the page).

Todo

• Make it easier to skip remaining births (the only reason this is necessary at all is to make it possible to move a piece that could give birth if it wanted to).
• Add animations to make it easier to visualize what transformations are occurring.
• Highlight overpopulated pieces to make them easier to remove.

Instructions

• Moves are constructed using mouse clicks. Click on a piece to move it (or to give birth, as the case may be). Then click again to give a destination. If overpopulation is detected, click on a single piece to remove it.
• If birth moves are possible, the move under construction is first interpreted as a birth move. If it is not a valid birth move, then it is interpreted as piece movement. In the case that you wish to move to a square which you could also give birth onto, you must click the button to skip remaining births.
• Any click that would result in an invalid move is ignored.
• Right-clicking will cancel the move under construction.

Resources

• The official Mamba web site (with rules, tutorials, and a Flash version of the game online) is here.
• The BoardGameGeek page for Mamba is here.
• You can buy a copy of Mamba from Funagain Games.

You may download an executable JAR (you can play this locally as an application, if you have Java installed), or one with the source included.