Throughout the 80s and early 90s there had been lots and lots of Mancala games for the Commodore 64. Most of them had little if any ambition as far as graphics were concerned. (An interesting exception is Kalah by Andrew Colin & Mike Masters.) But in 1996, there were two Mancala games that featured the kind of graphics popular in the demoscene: the Czech Custer and the Hungarian Vari.
Vari was indeed the product of a demo group, Damage. Coder was
István Kövágó, who anglicized his name in the credits to Stephen
Kovago. Gameplay is based on the usual Oware rules, the number of
dolls
per field can be configured in the menu. The music by
Petér Molnár is quite a treat (and I don't usually like C64 music),
the graphics by Tamás Oszkó superb.
Vari was a highlight of Mancala games on the C64, but it was also an end of line. As far as I know, there have been no new games in this genre since.
