A New Way to Play Kōnane
A free online version of kōnane, a game often called Hawaiian checkers, is now accessible worldwide.
Andrew Castro recalls how during the COVID-19 lockdowns, people turned to online games to connect with others. He remembers thinking, why can’t we play kōnane this way? “Kōnane is a traditional Hawaiian game that’s been around for centuries, but there’s never really been a good online platform to play it,” he says.
Image: likonane.org
Castro, who is Native Hawaiian and a student of Windward Community College’s remote Hawai‘iloa program, was born and raised in California. He began playing kōnane, often referred to as Hawaiian checkers, in 2017 as a way to connect to his culture. With a background in mathematics and statistics, he started working on a free web version of kōnane in 2020 as a passion project. This past July, Likōnane debuted, modeled after sites such as lichess.org and lidraughts.org.
Users log on to likonane.org and play against the computer, a friend or someone at random. Within the first three weeks, there were about 500 unique visitors to the site and about 1,000 games played. “We have users in South America and Europe that play it now,” Castro says.
The website has sections for learning the rules, puzzles that can help you figure out moves to win the game, and forums to chat with other players. Castro loves the sense of community it creates. “If you’re Hawaiian, or you grew up in Hawai‘i or anything like that and you’ve now moved somewhere else, you can connect over this game and find other people who are interested,” he says. “You also have the people who maybe are not super familiar with Hawaiian culture but they’ve been able to learn a little bit about it through this game, as well.” There’s even a club in Chile that plays kōnane regularly.
Katrina Valcourt is the executive editor of HONOLULU Magazine.
