Console Ayo

Ayo is a game commonly played in Nigeria, West Africa. Is is classified as a mancala game due to the similarity of the equipment but played with it own distinct native rules. The rules are actually very simple to learn but the game can become very engaging, with complex strategy, depending on the level of player. The essence of Console Ayo is the capture of the original rules and process of the game. There is a handful of blogs on the internet that explain and demonstrate the game. but unlike eastern and western mancala variations Ayo cannot be found rendered as a software application, until now that is. download from our download page

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AyoAPI and SDK
The Console Ayo program is a command-line application developed using the Ayo Application Programming Interface: AyoAPI, which is a dynamic link library with the core functionality required to develop the game in any .Net language. Console versions have been written in C# and VB.net and a WPF version for Windows as well. Contact us through our contact form if you are interested in developing Ayo for .Net and we will send you the SDK which includes the API and samples to kick start your development efforts. We are especially interested in the development of playing strategies which can be developed as plugins using the AyoStrategyEngine Interface

Strategy Engine
The strategy engine enables you to load different tactical encapsulations to play against. Taking Ayo into the 21st century in this way, strategies can be pitted against strategy alongside the player vs player and player vs computer, the program vs program challenge is on, as the search for the Odu master of the game. Several strategies will ship with the version 1.0

If you have a programmable strategy and are not a developer, take heart, we will help code your strategy for you as long as you can express it in writing

A Living Record and Preservation
The beta Of console Ayo was released July 01, 2009 at download.com. It has since then been distributed throughout the cnet.com network. The beta version was released 'as is' from the development server as the most comprehensive encapsulation of the native yoruba Ayo game you can curently get anywhere. It is many degrees a more effective disciptive tool and medium than the many blogs that explain the game verbally and through the use of diagrams. My personal favourite is the essay written by Seth of Rabi, no doubt a fine Yoruba man, who wrote about Ayo amongst enlightning and entertaining articles that bring the rich Yoruba culture and way of life into the light on the Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy website (h2g2) now run by the BBC.

Mastery and the Odu Strategy

This was going to be a comment on the game in cnet.com: i grew up in nigeria and these is my view on this product: it encapsultes the rules of the ayo that is common in western nigeria. i recall waiting as a little boy for my turn at the barbers in the company of town men playing ayo. my stepdad taught me the rules which i absorbed in minutes, they are simple. i always thought of mastering the game for this reason. strategies take game play to a level of complexity where masters of the game occupy. Odu is a yoruba word in common use that originates from the ayo game. Odu shows mastery of the game because as a strategy, you never see the winning hands coming as you would typically have a series of winning scores while the master gets nothing until the odu happens as a non stop scoring sequence that clears the board and ends the game. the other player is typically refered to as the mugu or maga because his winning rounds of small scores are irresistable bait structured by the master, in sequence for the Odu. If you are beating the game and can execute Odu against the computer we would love to hear from you, there is a cash prize for the feat which is unclaimed to date

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