Peralikatuma


Peralikatuma is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Sri Lanka. It is a game related to draughts and Alquerque as players hop over one another's pieces when capturing them. The game was documented by Henry Parker in Ancient Ceylon: An Account of the Aborigines and of Part of the Early Civilisation with the name Perali Kotuwa or the War Enclosure. Parker mentions that it is also played in India. It closely resembles another game from Sri Lanka called Kotu Ellima. The two games use the same board which consist of a standard Alquerque board but with four triangular boards attach to its four sides. The only difference between the two games is in the number of pieces. In Peralikatuma, each player has 23 pieces. In Kotu Ellima, each player has 24 pieces.
The game is also spelled as Perali Kotuma.

Setup

The board consist of a standard Alquerque board, and attached to each of its four sides is a triangle each of which are cross-sliced. This makes for a board with 49 intersections.
Each player initially has 23 pieces which are distinguishable from the other player. Each player initially places their pieces on the first two ranks of their side of the Alquerque board, the nearest triangle to them, and the triangle on their left.

Rules