How to Play Hyena

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Hyena is a fast-moving race-and-capture board game played on a spiral track. Each player races a token representing their mother from the outer edge of the board toward a well at the centre, then back out again. A shared Hyena token roams the track eating rival mothers, and landing on an opponent's piece sends it back to square one. The tension between sprinting ahead and protecting your own position makes every roll matter.

The game is popular at family gatherings because it is easy to explain in under two minutes yet generates plenty of noise and laughter. It is widely played across North Africa and the Middle East, often on hand-drawn boards in the open air, and requires very little equipment.

A little history

Hyena's origins are not precisely documented, but it is traditionally associated with Sudan and other parts of North and East Africa, where it is commonly known as "Hyena" or by local-language equivalents. It appears in ethnographic accounts of Sudanese games from the twentieth century and is frequently cited as one of the region's most widely played folk games. Beyond that geographic association and general tradition, the early history of the game is unclear.

Setting up

1. Place the board flat so all players can reach it. The track is a spiral: the outer end is the start (the village) and the innermost square is the well.
2. Each player chooses a mother token and places it on the start square at the outer end of the spiral.
3. Place the Hyena token off the board beside it; it enters play later according to the rules.
4. Decide the turn order. The most common method is each player rolling the die once; highest roll goes first, then play proceeds clockwise.
5. Agree before the game begins whether you are playing with an exact roll required to reach the well (recommended for a tighter game) or whether an overshoot counts as arrival.

How to play

1. On your turn, roll the die and move your mother token forward along the spiral by that many squares, counting from its current position toward the well at the centre.
2. If your mother lands on a square already occupied by a rival mother, that rival token is sent back to the start (the village). Your mother stays on that square.
3. Once your mother reaches the well (the innermost square), she has collected water. On your very next turn she must travel back out along the same spiral track toward the village.
4. The first player whose mother reaches the well triggers the Hyena. On the turn immediately after that player's mother departs the well on her return journey, that same player places the Hyena token on the well square. The Hyena moves on every subsequent turn belonging to its owner.
5. Each time its owner rolls the die, the Hyena moves outward along the spiral by double the number rolled (multiply the roll by two). The Hyena is travelling faster than the mothers.
6. If the Hyena lands on or passes over a square containing any rival mother (not the owner's mother), that mother is eaten and removed from the game. Mothers that have not yet reached the well and begun their return journey are safe; the Hyena only eats mothers on their return trip.
7. A player whose mother is eaten is eliminated from the game.
8. Other players continue racing their mothers to the well and back while the Hyena pursues them. Every player who owns a mother still on the board takes their turn as normal.
9. The owner of the Hyena is simultaneously trying to get their own mother home while moving the Hyena to eat rivals. If the Hyena reaches the outer edge (the village end of the track) without eating any mothers, it simply stops; it cannot loop back.
10. Play continues with remaining players until a winner is determined as described in the winning section.

Winning and scoring

The winner is the first player whose mother token completes the full journey: from the village, along the spiral to the well, and back out to the village start square. An exact roll is not required to finish unless players agreed otherwise during setup; any roll that reaches or passes the start square on the return trip counts as arrival. If you are playing the elimination variant, the last player whose mother survives the Hyena and reaches home wins.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns which mothers are vulnerable to the Hyena. The standard ruling is clear: a mother is only at risk during her return journey (after she has visited the well). A mother still travelling inward toward the well cannot be eaten, even if the Hyena's movement would take it over that square. The Hyena simply passes over inward-bound mothers without effect. If players are at mixed stages, mark returning mothers visibly if needed.

A second frequent dispute involves the Hyena landing exactly on a square with a mother versus passing over it. The standard ruling is that both landing on and passing over count as a capture: any returning mother on any square between the Hyena's starting position and its ending position on that roll is eaten. Where two returning mothers occupy squares in the Hyena's path on a single roll, both are eliminated simultaneously. The Hyena token stops at the furthest square of its move regardless.

How to win more often

• Get to the well and back as quickly as possible. The player who triggers the Hyena controls it, which is a significant advantage, but only if you can also get your own mother home before the Hyena runs out of track.
• If you are not first to the well, delay your return journey slightly if the Hyena is directly behind you. Staying on your inward leg a turn longer can let the Hyena overshoot other returning mothers first.
• When you own the Hyena, prioritise rolling turns so the Hyena stays just behind the nearest rival mother rather than charging ahead. A Hyena that overshoots all remaining mothers is wasted.
• In games with four or more players, watch for a rival mother that is close behind you on the return leg. If you can bump that mother by landing on it during your inward journey, you buy yourself extra time before the Hyena becomes relevant.
• Do not forget that bumping a rival mother (landing on its square) sends it back to the village start, which is often more tactically valuable early in the game than focusing purely on speed.

Variations

Elimination Hyena

In this widely played variant, eaten mothers are permanently removed from the game and their owners are out. Play continues until only one mother remains. This makes the Hyena owner's position extremely powerful and shifts the game toward a knockout format rather than a simple race, increasing tension considerably in the mid-game.

Multiple Wells

Played on a larger board with two or three marked well squares at different points along the spiral, each mother must stop at every well in turn on both the inward and outward legs. This lengthens the game significantly and gives slower players more opportunity to recover after a bump.

Stick Dice

The traditional method uses several flat sticks split lengthways, each with a marked and an unmarked face. Players throw the sticks and the result is determined by how many marked faces land upward. Certain combinations (all marked or all unmarked) yield high-value results including the right to release the Hyena. This version introduces different probability distributions that alter the game's pace and feel compared with a standard six-sided die.

Shared Hyena

Rather than the Hyena belonging to the first player to reach the well, this variant gives each player a turn controlling the Hyena on a rotating basis starting from when it is first released. Each player rolls for the Hyena on their own turn before rolling for their mother. This removes the outsized advantage of being first to the well and is a useful adjustment for games where player skill levels vary widely.

Hyena: frequently asked questions