Outside Inside Mancala - 2 Players

Video Transcript for Review of Outside Inside Camping Games - Mancala Folding Game - 37399948

Ellen: Hey, everyone. I'm Ellen here at etrailer.com and today, we're going to be taking a quick look at the camping mancala set. Now, I don't know about you, but I loved playing mancala as a kid. I would actually just play it by myself for hours, so I'm kind of stoked to show you guys this. It's a really simple, but very fun game. And the cool thing about it is that it also helps to build math skills.

If you're playing with your little ones, this is a great way to work on counting and strategy and math. And it's just a really simple, but very fun game.We can take a closer look at what comes with this kit. You do get the board that collapses down. It folds in on itself. We'll have our six pits here and then our mancalas on the other side.

One little thing that I kind of find annoying is that this tab just sort of sits there and if you try to fold it over, it kind of holds it up, but it's just a minor thing. As that sits down, we can distribute out our beads or seeds. It's going to be 48 in total of these little guys, so four per pit.The one thing I can see being kind of an issue with this kit is that these little guys are very light. As I was playing around with this here in the studio, they kind of wanted to run away, especially as you try to grab the seeds out of these little pits. They're fairly shallow, so that's just going to be one thing that you'll have to be really careful of, is not losing any of these little things.

Of course, you can always improvise, use small stones or pebbles, especially if you're out in the wilderness where you can always find a way.There we go. That's the setup for your mancala game, and then you just move those guys around until you can collect the most beads in your mancala. It does also come with a carrying case, so whenever you're done, you can just pack everything up and slide it in there. It's a really lightweight board as well, so it won't weigh you down. This is a really fun, ancient game.

It's definitely something that I find really fun. It definitely brought out the kid in me just seeing it here in the studio, so I think you guys are really going to like it. Something I also liked about it as well is this color contrast. I think it just looks really nice. Also, it helps to make those little beads more visible as you're playing, so you can make those quick judgements on which move to make.Once everything is all back together, throw our beads back in there, seal it up, and then we can throw that into the pouch. That makes it easy to take with us wherever we might go. Don't really need any power to use this. It's an easy way to pass the time and, again, teach those crucial math skills to our loved ones.Now, once it's folded up, it's going to be pretty compact. It's about 7 inches long by about 4 inches wide. Whenever it's expanded out, it's about 14 inches long and still about 4 inches wide. Height, I'd say about 1 and a quarter, so it'd be 3 quarters of an inch tall whenever it's unfolded. It is covered by a limited lifetime warranty, and that's pretty much all there is to it for our mancala set. I hope this has been fun for you. It definitely has been for me. Thanks for watching.