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Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

echochess.com

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Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#131

Post by ramly »

romellem wrote: post #86
ramly wrote: post #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: Y…

Fun game! This seems similar to a game useChess - https://use-chess.fall-2023.reactjam.com - I played last year. Would you happen to be the same author?

First time I see that! Not the most intuitive interactions imho but fun game to try.

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#133

Post by ramly »

gverrilla wrote: post #82

I like the game, and the website, but this daily format combined with how fast the game is to play doesn't get me engaged enough to save it to my favbar and return - I just didn't have enough time to get hooked and really dislike artificial scarcity like this. Wordle worked imo because it's so immersive and it's not as rapid to conclude - also because there is a very limited set of 5 words in english comparing to che…

Hey gverrilla, looks like you tried the game when the traffic was at the peak and the server crashed temporarily. If you'd like to give it another try, we're fully live again online.

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#134

Post by edanm »

ramly wrote: post #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: Y…

Really cool!

The only feedback I'd add is to make it more clear that the red squares are just inaccessible, because that wasn't at all clear at first. When failing to move a piece, the red squares together with a non-standard mechanic makes it unclear what you're missing.

Probably just some text at the top of the puzzle or a better UI cue would be enough.

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#135

Post by hayst4ck »

ramly wrote: post #129
hayst4ck wrote: post #128

The two major things I would change: 1. The basic rules don't state that there is no promotion. 2. I would like to know a kind of "par" value per puzzle. Either the best it can be solved in or the average or something like that. This would help in finding an optimal-ish solution.

Great points, thanks for sharing the feedback. Noted for #1. For #2, did you mean separately from the results screen you get at the end of a daily puzzle? That screen shows a move efficiency bar at the bottom with something like "Only 12 moves! Best is 10" Granted this will be displayed in a much better way over time.

I am probably wrong about #2. It's probably too easy if you get the # optimal moves. If you know the number of moves, that tells you how many non capture moves. That is a very strong hint, especially since there are only a handful of real choices per puzzle (at least today).

I don't think I saw the #moves the first time, or at the very least the lack of a try again/try for optimal/try other puzzles button made the page seem terminal. I imagine the share button is prominently there to go for virality.

https://wafflegame.net/archive is a game that is very similar to yours. I like their layout. The archive with a score per puzzle and aggregated information at the top is fairly addicting.

Waffle puzzles give you a maximum number of moves, 5 more than optimal. I like that more than infinite moves with try again. I think "failing" gives attempting more meaning.

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#136

Post by chedoku »

zzo38computer wrote: post #118
chedoku wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share it with us?

Here it is: (InputXY) (Control (INIT $Cursor 1 1 0 0 Create =@cur) ) ($Cursor Player (Image "Cursor0" "Cursor1") (DefaultImage ()) (Density -10) (CREATE LOOP 0 1 50 Animate) ) ($Tile (Image "Tile0" "Tile1") (Density 10) (INIT Loc + 1 band =Image) (CLICK @cur ,ObjBelow #Move Loc ,Send . 1) ) ($White Input (Image "P" "N" "B" "R" "Q" "K") (CLICK @cur Loc ,MoveTo) (#Move ,:movable if Arg1 Arg2 MoveTo . Arg3 if From ,Imag…

Thanks. Interesting. Reminds me of https://ludii.games

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#138

Post by ramly »

edanm wrote: post #134
ramly wrote: post #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: Y…

Really cool! The only feedback I'd add is to make it more clear that the red squares are just inaccessible, because that wasn't at all clear at first. When failing to move a piece, the red squares together with a non-standard mechanic makes it unclear what you're missing. Probably just some text at the top of the puzzle or a better UI cue would be enough.

Thanks edanm, really glad you're enjoying echo chess! Very good point, will iterate on that. Would it help if the obstacle squares had some pattern/texture in them or something like an 'x' inside instead of simply being a different color?

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#139

Post by ramly »

robertlagrant wrote: post #74
fsflover wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a web app?

Isn't it already a web app?

Yep! It's accessible from any device/browser on echochess.com

you can actually install it locally on any device straight from there too (e.g. on iOS if you're in Safari you can tap share > add to Home Screen)

Re: Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture

#140

Post by ramly »

chedoku wrote: post #53
ramly wrote: post #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: Y…

Simple and minimalistic desing but hard to solve. Love it. Thanks Sami.

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it and really grateful for the support
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