Coming to the Forgotten Games iOS app
Begin with a board so full that the first move must remove.
There is no empty square and nowhere to move. Two opening removals create the first breath of space; from then on, every move jumps an opposing stone and enlarges the pattern of gaps. Kōnane begins at maximum density and grows more open—and more dangerous—with every capture.
See how the app edition plays
Beyond the board
In 1924, Kenneth Emory published Kaʻahaina Naihe’s detailed account of Kōnane. A Hawaiʻi Department of Education curriculum brought 8-by-8 and 10-by-10 forms into teaching in 1983; in 2026, players gathered again for a Bishop Museum invitational. Each moment shows the game being explained, taught or contested anew.
Kōnane moves through named people and institutions: Kaʻahaina Naihe’s account, educators who shaped classroom versions and players meeting over the board today. That living chain is richer than the idea of one frozen “authentic” form. The edition here names its sources and joins the conversation as one variant.
Hawaiʻi is not scenery for this page; it is the language, people and institutions through which the game’s record reaches us. Hawaiian orthography and precise attribution keep those connections visible whenever the board is played.
The turn that changes everything
Kōnane reverses the familiar arc of a board game. You do not fill an empty field; you carve routes through a board that begins complete. Each capture lengthens a corridor, closes another and changes which stones can move at all. The position becomes simpler to look at just as it becomes harder to read.
From first move to victory
This is the selected Forgotten Games app edition. Other ways of playing exist.
An 8-by-8 grid begins full, with black and white stones in an alternating pattern.
Black removes a corner or centre-area stone. White then removes an orthogonally adjacent stone.
On a turn, jump one stone orthogonally over an adjacent opposing stone into the empty cell beyond it.
If the same stone can make another capture in the same direction, you may continue—or end the turn.
The version in the app
The app combines an Emory-recorded centre-or-corner opening structure with optional same-direction continuation documented in later Hawaiʻi teaching accounts. Its exact 8-by-8 opening mapping is a product choice.
Follow the evidence
These are the principal records and accounts reviewed for this introduction. A source can show a dated game, ruleset or practice; it cannot by itself prove a single origin or an unchanged tradition.
Forgotten Games for iPhone and iPad
The final App Store destination will be added before release.
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