Konane

I've decided to design a board for playing the traditional Hawaiian game Konane. Traditionally, these boards are carved into stone or wood, but that turns out to be impractical for playing at home.

What is Konane?

Konane is a game that, at first, resembles checkers or draughts. However, it is more accurately described as a two player version of the pegging game solitaire. Pieces are jumped and removed until no more moves can be made. Rules for playing can be found on Wikipedia, from Cyningstan, and my own preferred house rules.

The Design

I first encountered Konane at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Oahu, Hawaii. In order to be able to play at home, I wanted to have a board that was both practical and evoked the simple traditional boards found in Hawaii.

I decided on a board that would comfortably fit on a 450mm x 450mm canvas - big enough to comfortably play on, but not so big to cover a whole table. At this size, a 10x10 board would also nicely work with standard Go stones as playing pieces.

A Full-Size 10x10 Konane Board

A konane board is usually carved out of stone or wood such that the playing surface is covered in pits like those on a mancala board. The pits on this design are textured to evoke a 3-d look on a 2-d surface. Furthermore, the pits alternate in orientation in order to allow a simple guide to the checkered placement of pieces to set up play.

The centerpiece of this board covers the center four pits. A traditional konane board is generally without decoration, however, marking the center pits makes it easier to start the game, and provides a little flourish to allude to the game's origins. I will not claim authenticity in these designs, only homage to traditional Hawaiian design elements such as the hibiscus flower and sea turtles.

The Centerpiece

Making the Board

I've made 10x10 and 6x6 pit versions of the board. The 6x6 version is sized to fit on a 11"x17" sheet of paper (or a standard A3 sheet).

The real intent, though, is to transfer the full board to a 18"x18" sheet of canvas in order to make a full size, yet portable playing surface. Maybe someday I'll actually get around to doing this...

Accessing the Resources

The full size, smaller size, and source files, as well as my house rules, are available on Github under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.