Kinged
If you can jump, you must.
What it is
Checkers, the English game on an 8×8 board: twelve pieces a side on the dark squares, moving diagonally forward and jumping to capture. Reach the far row and a second disc drops onto your piece: it is kinged, and can move backwards as well as forwards. Reaching the far row also ends the turn, even in the middle of a jump.
If you can jump, you must, and when there is more than one jump you choose which. So you can give a piece away on purpose and take two back when your opponent has to take it. A jump carries on while there is another to make. You lose with no piece left, or no move left to make.
Draws apply themselves: the same position three times, or forty moves each with no capture and only kings moving. Before either rule ends a game, the panel of the person to move warns that a draw is coming.
Play the computer, or sit two people at opposite ends of one phone or tablet. These are the official rules, and the computer plays by them: it chooses by searching the same rules, with no opening book and no endgame database, and the same position gets the same move on any device. It gets stronger after you win and gentler after you lose. Red discs carry a ring and black discs a dot, so the two sides differ by more than colour.
How to play
- Sit downTap the board
- Move a pieceTap it, then a lit square, or drag it
- Add a second playerTwo players? Tap here
- ResignResign, then tap again
Tap the board to sit down at the near end, playing red. Red moves first, and the board plays itself until you sit down. Tap one of your pieces to pick it up, and the squares it can move to light up. When you can jump, you must: the pieces that can jump are ringed before you tap, and a wrong tap lights them and says why. A double jump goes one hop at a time, and your turn ends when the last hop does. A second person taps Two players? Tap here at the other end and plays from there; that panel turns to face them. In a rematch, the loser plays red. Put the phone down mid-game and it waits for you: nothing takes your seat away.
On a desktop, click or drag, just as by touch. Or use the keys: the arrow keys move a ring around the board, Enter or Space picks a piece up and puts it down, and Escape puts it back. 1 and 2 take the near and far seats, and M turns the sound on and off.
What isn’t settled yet
No take-back. A move is final once its last hop lands.
English rules only: no Canadian 12×12 board and no flying kings.
You can’t pick the computer’s strength. It steps up after you win and down after you lose.
Two people at most, one at each end of the screen.
Evenly matched games often end with kings circling each other; the draw rules end those for you.
Build Log
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Build 1
Draws were made to apply themselves, because a screen in a waiting room has nobody there to claim one: the same position coming round a third time with the same side to move, or forty moves each with no capture and no man moved. Before either rule ends a game, the panel of the person to move now warns that a draw is coming, so no game stops without notice.
Credits and licences
No third-party engine — it draws to a plain canvas. The typefaces it does use are embedded under the SIL Open Font Licence, with the copyright notice retained in the shipped file. Cover drawn from the game’s own board and disc code.
Kinged is original work by Launchway Games.