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Show HN: I made a little puzzle game about a rogue chess knight

by freetonik on 3/29/25, 2:02 PM with 57 comments

  • by gjm11 on 3/31/25, 11:03 PM

    This could use a bit more explanation. For instance:

    How many points and how many bonus moves do you get for a capture? Does it depend on what you capture? (It looks like it's one bonus move whatever you capture, but more points for more valuable pieces; 1 for a pawn, 3 for a bishop, so I'll guess it's 5 for a rook and 9 for a queen.)

    Does "Beware of attackers!" mean (1) you aren't allowed to move the knight to a square that's attached, (2) you will get some points deducted when you do, or (3) nothing, it's just flavour-text? (It looks like it's #2, a loss of one point each time you move to a square that's attacked.)

    The instructions don't mention the "clean board" bonus; I think they should.

    I'd write it something like this:

    Complete each level by reaching the target within the given number of moves.

    Each piece you capture gives you one more move, and points according to the value of the piece.

    You lose one point any time you move to a square that's attacked.

    Your score for the level is the number of moves you had spare at the end, times the number of points you earned. Double if you captured all the pieces!

    (... Except that it looks as if there's some further "streak" mechanic, which I haven't tried to figure out the details of.)

    If that's too long, put it behind a clicky-button, and just say "Get your knight to the target square. Earn points for getting there quickly without being attacked, and capturing pieces on the way." plus a button labelled something like "Full rules".

    Maybe make the notification when you capture a piece say something like "+3 points / +1 move"?

    If the levels get fairly crowded then it might be expensive to get the computer to find the best possible score, but it shouldn't be hard to make it find a pretty good score. You could present that, either at the start or after the user finishes the level, as a target, and congratulate them when they meet or even beat it.

  • by dylan604 on 3/31/25, 9:52 PM

    Way back when Flash was a thing, one of the teachers at my kiddo's school started a chess club. They never played a full game of chess, but other games that taught the kids how to move the pieces and not burden them with the strategy of a full game. I decided to try to turn a few of those into Flash based games. It was fun making each of the pieces with the rules limiting their movement which became a game on its own just to show where pieces could go or not. Then adding more pieces to start playing the games. I never worked it up to the point of having player vs computer though. Glad to see other people also thinking chess based games could be made without needing a vs computer as well.

    I think this game would be perfect for a young kids chess club. Nice job!

  • by parsimo2010 on 3/31/25, 8:09 PM

    This was fun. I played for a few minutes and like how there seem to be multiple ways to play the game-

    1. just get through the level and not worry about losing points

    2. get through the level without losing any points but not worrying about clearing all the pieces

    3. absolute perfection where you clear all the pieces without losing any points

    This flexibility makes it good for serious players but also kids/casual players. Great job!

  • by Eric_WVGG on 3/31/25, 8:53 PM

    You’re standing in notable footsteps, one of Alexei Pajitnov’s follow-ups to Tetris was a similar game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Move

  • by nomilk on 4/1/25, 1:24 AM

    I just played for a few minutes and loved it. Chess variants can sometimes take too long to understand the rules so this was great (excellent ux). I think I'd have liked it a bit more if you get captured (lose and restart) when you move on a square that's being attacked (rather than losing a point).

    I also enjoyed how it got a bit harder as the levels went on. And also how a stray pawn/piece might act as a hint (i.e. to capture on that square) - a bit like how side scrolling and adventure games might leave a trail of rings/bananas/collectables to guide the player along a desired path where it otherwise may not be obvious.

  • by freetonik on 3/29/25, 6:53 PM

  • by Lerc on 4/1/25, 12:22 AM

    Playing on my phone. Got to just under 12,000 before I got a txt and when I went back to the game it had restarted.

    Two things that would be nice. Show the optimal score possible for any level, with a single puzzle mode (maybe puzzle of the day) to replay to try and achieve the best score on a single level.

    A more significant penalty for moving into unsafe squares. Perhaps losing moves rather than points. An increasing penalty for second and third hit might mitigate the just blunder your way through approach.

    I felt like I was in no danger of losing, but if it had a strongger penalty for being hit I think I would hit a limit in a reasonable amount of time.

  • by yubiox on 3/31/25, 8:42 PM

    4872 first game. I got all the pieces on every level except the first because I didn't realize you could. Pretty fun and I don't even play chess. Are the levels designed by hand or generated?

  • by tobyhinloopen on 4/1/25, 6:12 AM

    I have no clue what I'm supposed to do, am I stupid?

  • by snarf21 on 3/31/25, 7:44 PM

    Is there a help screen with the rules or am I missing how to trigger it?

  • by bobbiechen on 3/31/25, 11:47 PM

    Great game, I enjoyed it! Reminds me of echo chess, using the chess pieces for movement means it's really easy to pick up.

    I noticed a potential bug (Firefox on Android) - I can pick up extra points by capturing, capturing again, then quickly moving back to the first capture square. I get the points as if it was another capture, even though there is no piece there anymore.

    Edit: actually, I can quickly move back and forth for infinite points (and combo)

  • by berbec on 3/31/25, 11:35 PM

    Wonderfully fun game, but I really wish there was a way to save progress instead of starting over again and again.

  • by sionisrecur on 4/1/25, 1:37 AM

    Very nice. I think it would be more fun/challenging if you were unable to move to a position where an opponent piece can take your knight. Also some explanation would be nice, at first I thought I had to avoid other pieces and reach the end in the least amount of moves.

  • by roskelld on 3/31/25, 10:12 PM

    I picked up chess a few weeks ago after having a lift time of never getting around to learning it. This is great fun and I'm getting to use my newly found skill set of knowing horses move in L shapes.

    EDIT: Just scraped through level 9 with zero moves left. Felt tense.

  • by ffsm8 on 4/1/25, 8:31 PM

    I kept getting confused why I'm not getting any points. You really should give the other units the other color (black), o thought they were there too effectively block the spaces, not to be able to capture them for points.

  • by cassepipe on 4/1/25, 12:23 AM

    I don't know how to move a piece, does not work neither on firefox nor chromium.

  • by CaesarA on 4/2/25, 3:43 AM

    This game is great. I played it for quite a few minutes. It reminds a lot of one the games that the inventor of Tetris designed for the Famicom. I can't remember the name of it at the moment.

  • by BrenBarn on 4/1/25, 3:37 AM

    It's a cool game! A couple potential improvements:

    1) Provide a "level selector" or way to replay already-played levels 2) Provide a way to restart current level 3) Explain the scoring more fully

  • by nebulaninja_27 on 3/31/25, 11:30 PM

    really cool stuff. I think you should have a bigger penalty for when the knight moves to a spot that can be taken by another piece.

  • by 4ndrewl on 4/1/25, 4:00 PM

    This is great, but I thought the jump from level 2 to level 3 was a little steep.

  • by 2muchcoffeeman on 4/1/25, 3:53 AM

    This is pretty fun, but once I saw how to look at the puzzle got fairly easy.

  • by rco8786 on 4/1/25, 2:23 AM

    Took me a sec to figure it out but very fun. Played 23 levels or so.

  • by nosioptar on 3/31/25, 7:40 PM

    I can't scroll on Firefox mobile, moves and anything below are not visible. I can't tell if I have limited moves (if so, would prefer an option to get unlimited) or if it's just counting my moves.

    I wish I could kill the sound.

    Otherwise, everything seems to work.

  • by fallinditch on 3/31/25, 7:45 PM

    Nice job, it's fun. Thank you :-)

  • by wonderwonder on 3/31/25, 8:13 PM

    Fun, nice job

  • by pithanyChan on 4/1/25, 8:10 AM

    this is cool. reminds me of Hoplite for no reason at all.

  • by BiraIgnacio on 4/1/25, 12:55 AM

    thanks, this is fun!