Entertainment

Back to the Classics: 3 Traditional Strategy Games South Africans Will Love

Steadily moving towards a goal that is within sight, challenging your skills, focusing on your surroundings with never a passive moment, understanding your opponents… these are just some of the things that make strategy games so interesting. South African strategy games go way back, with morabaraba and moruba as prime examples.

Here are three of our recommendations for people who want to visit some of the best traditional, social games that will put your skills to the test:

Blackjack

Casino games are well-loved in South Africa, with slot games Candy Crush Saga and Coin Master ranked as the top two mobile games on Google Play’s chart for South Africa in 2022. If you’re looking for something that feels a little more sophisticated and elaborate, however, blackjack is a classic banking card game that is perfect for any math lovers out there.

Blackjack can be played as a pair or a small group with one person acting as the dealer, and uses standard decks of 52 cards, which the dealer shuffles at the start. One of the biggest differences between slot games and blackjack is that, for the latter, things aren’t simply down to betting on odds. In blackjack, having a proper strategy gives you the chance to play the game in your favor as you and the other players place bets and compete against the dealer, rather than each other.

Backgammon

One game that has truly stood the test of time (and for good reason!) is backgammon. It is one of the oldest games in history, alongside Go and chess, though backgammon is thankfully not as complex rule-wise, yet still offers an adequate challenge.

This two-player game involves moving 15 checkers across a board consisting of 24 points. The concept is actually rather similar to moruba, though the latter does not require dice; both games require the two players to compete against each other in order to bring their pieces home, whilst finding ways to block the other from doing the same on their side.

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Checkers

Another two-player board game that has held its ground as a form of entertainment for at least 5,000 years is checkers, which also uses a board with moveable pieces. This time, however, your goal is to scheme in order to snatch all of your opponent’s pieces off the board.

Checkers is generally a pretty short game, taking very little time to set up while basic games last up to around 30 minutes. This is ideal if you’re looking for something more on the casual side but still want something to scratch that mental itch calling for a puzzle to solve.

If you’re someone who enjoys a hands-on gaming experience but doesn’t want to spend hundreds and thousands on a gaming PC and setup for the latest strategy games that require a long-term investment, you might enjoy going back to some of the classics. These games are timeless, proved by their longstanding popularity and various online adaptations, allowing you to get directly involved with the set up and put your skills to the test.