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Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

echochess.com

11–20 of 154 posts

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#11
post #9

Cool idea. I have the feeling this would be even much better without the red squares and with a regular sized board. And that it would feel more logical and interesting to me. Or is it impossible to create challenging puzzles without the red squares?

it's a ~normal chess board (6x6) with no obstacles but with the echo chess variant mechanics

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#13
I have seen it mentioned before. It does not work on my computer, but I wrote an implementation that does (in Free Hero Mesh, which is a programming language that I invented for making up puzzle games). However, I do not have the puzzles. Do you have a copy of the puzzles?

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#14
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, on Firefox for android, you can't move pieces downward. The browser hijacks the "drag down" gesture and refreshes the page.

The drag down gesture in Firefox was disabled last year because it interfered with page content. Are you running an old version or did you explicitly re-enable that behavior somehow?

It was re-enable by default last week, in version 124.

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#15
Hey again HN! I'm sami, the creator of echo chess. Humbled to see this game up on HN again. This is a chess variant I first developed as a beta last year and the feedback from the community has been incredibly helpful.

Spent the past year iterating on it and honing it into a daily format. So many more improvements to come. Lmk if you have any questions or suggestions. Would love to hear your thoughts.

-How to play: You play White (it's always your turn). You become any piece you capture, and your goal is to clear the board in the fewest number of moves. You can capture your own pieces too. No castling, promotions, or en passant.

-What's Zen Mode: a procedurally generated infinite mode that uses an ML model I built. Happy to answer any questions on that.

https://echochess.com/

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#16
post #5

So is the idea that the dark red squares are inaccessible and you just can't move to them? I spent way too long trying to figure that out. I was stuck thinking along the lines of not being able to to move into check, even after transformation to another piece.

Correct. Apologies for not making that clearer! in some puzzles it is much more obvious than today's because the obstacles connect to create long connected walls: https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#17
Really cool! It would be nice if there was an icon on the inaccessible squares to indicate it. I also didn’t feel the lives counter at the bottom was necessary. And like others have mentioned, click->square is better in some cases for accessibility reasons.

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#18
post #16
post #5

So is the idea that the dark red squares are inaccessible and you just can't move to them? I spent way too long trying to figure that out. I was stuck thinking along the lines of not being able to to move into check, even after transformation to another piece.

Correct. Apologies for not making that clearer! in some puzzles it is much more obvious than today's because the obstacles connect to create long connected walls: https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...

Maybe make them look like rocks or brick walls?

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#19

Really cool! It would be nice if there was an icon on the inaccessible squares to indicate it. I also didn’t feel the lives counter at the bottom was necessary. And like others have mentioned, click->square is better in some cases for accessibility reasons.

Thank you janalsncm, very helpful feedback! Will take note of all these. Concerning the lives not feeling necessary, do you mind sharing how many attempts it took you to solve the puzzle?

Still trying to hone in on the ideal number of lives for each mode. Some puzzles definitely would need more lives than others. For example: https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#20
post #7
post #5

So is the idea that the dark red squares are inaccessible and you just can't move to them? I spent way too long trying to figure that out. I was stuck thinking along the lines of not being able to to move into check, even after transformation to another piece.

Yup, you can't move to them. Weirdly I didn't notice them at all until several attempts in (and was getting confused as to why certain moves weren't allowed), in a way that reminded me of the Selective Attention Test[0]. Once I'd clocked them I was able to solve it pretty quickly. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

That Selective Attention experiment always amazes me. It's like one of those things that shouldn't really work but they somehow do. Like welding an impossible triangle.
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