22 ms·
Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture
- ramly 3y agoFYI if anyone temporarily experienced a missing puzzle yesterday, I'm sorry this is the first experience that you were welcomed in. The HN hug is real. Had to run around switching servers asap but thankfully the rest of the puzzles and Zen Mode stayed intact and playable. Everything is back up and running right now on https://echochess.com/ https://echochess.com/ If you're still experiencing a missing puzzle situation, please try clearing your browser cache and reloading if possible (if you had installed the app locally on your device, re-installing should do the same). If any issue remains, please let me know and I'll be fixing it ASAP. Will also push a new release very soon with many of the early fixes identified by the community. Thank you all for bringing so much love and passion to echo chess. How'd you do on the Classic today? :)
- quacrobat 3y agoGreat little game @ramly! Quick question about Zen Mode, are you using something like Wave Function Collapse to create the infinite game?
- hakzuni 3y agoSuch groovy music and a cool mechanic! ECHO CHESS Mar 25 (C) ♟ 0:27 sec 1/8 tries 14 moves
- ramly 3y agowere you able to solve today's EPIC puzzle?
- FreakLegion 3y agoApparently it could've been better. ECHO CHESS Mar 25 (E) 1:31 sec 1/8 tries 15 moves
- sparky_z 3y agoSo 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.
- sparky_z 3y agoAlso, on Firefox for android, you can't move pieces downward. The browser hijacks the "drag down" gesture and refreshes the page.
- anilakar 3y agoThe 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?
- whutsurnaym 3y agoIt was re-enable by default last week, in version 124.
- anilakar 3y agoInteresting. I'm running the developer edition everywhere and they didn't apparently consider it necessary to re-enable it there :-)
- ramly 3y agosorry to hear about that! do you mind sharing which device and version of android you're on? I believe what anilakar said is correct
- TrianguloY 3y agoWorkaround: pick the piece and move the finger upwards, then you can freely move it around (as in, instead of press-down-release, do press-up-down-release). The pull to refresh has been very broken since forever. Apparently they enabled it by default in the latest version because it was "very stable" but I'm not so sure...
- mg 3y agoCool 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?
- ramly 3y agohave you seen this one: https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=EPIC&level_date=2024-03-17 https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
- ddejohn 3y agoFor me, that links to the current daily. I also get the same puzzle when selecting the daily epic. Using Firefox. Here are some screenshots: https://i.imgur.com/ZJ36abU.png https://i.imgur.com/ZJ36abU.png https://i.imgur.com/3Ft0Zqr.png https://i.imgur.com/3Ft0Zqr.png https://i.imgur.com/ijHythf.png https://i.imgur.com/ijHythf.png
- ramly 3y agoFYI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39828765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39828765 Fixing this asap. Thanks for reporting ddejohn!
- ramly 3y ago
- zzo38computer 3y agoI 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?
- chedoku 3y agoCan you share it with us?
- zzo38computer 3y agoHere 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 ,Image =Image From ,Destroy . (=P $Black) lnot if WinLevel then then @cur Loc ,MoveTo . then ) (:movable Image (case (0 :pawn) (1 :knight) (2 :bishop) (3 :rook) (4 :queen) (5 :king) ) ) (:pawn Yloc Arg2 1 + eq Xloc Arg1 Delta Arg3 eq land) (:knight Xloc Arg1 Delta dup * Yloc Arg2 Delta dup * + 5 eq) (:bishop Xloc Arg1 Delta Yloc Arg2 Delta eq if =:queen else 0 then) (:rook Xloc Arg1 Delta Yloc Arg2 Delta land if 0 else =:queen then) (:queen From Seek =%d Loc begin %d NewXY over over ObjTopAt dup From eq if . . ret then ,Class $Tile ne until . . 0) (:king From Chebyshev 1 eq) (#Destroy From Self ne if From #Move Loc 1 ,SendEx . then Destroyed lnot ) ('D @cur Coloc if $White #Destroy Loc BroadcastAnd . then ) ) ($Black (Image "PB" "NB" "BB" "RB" "QB" "KB") (CLICK @cur ,ObjBelow #Move Loc 1 ,SendEx . 1) ) (Free Hero Mesh itself can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/zzo38/freeheromesh https://github.com/zzo38/freeheromesh)
- chedoku 3y ago
- ramly 3y agoHey 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/ https://echochess.com/
- ramly 3y ago...Also for anyone who's curious about the extremely deep rabbit hole involved in this project, I think you'll enjoy this (somewhat) quick read: https://samiramly.com/chess https://samiramly.com/chess
- blakesley 3y agoWhoa, this post is actually really inspiring! It gives me a better understanding for why Echo Chess has more replayability than other lil' games I've toyed with. It makes me want to poke at new ideas now. Thanks for sharing this crazy journey of yours! I guess I also want to ask: are you making money on this? Like, how do you have this much time to spend on this project?
- ramly 3y agoThanks so much for reading this beast of a tech article haha! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm surprised people are actually reading the whole thing lol. Thank you for the kind words.
- samstave 3y agoSuper fun! THanks. 11 moves! and now I need to wait 24 hours! :-( You know what would be cool: flashing a trivia fact beneath the board with each move. Maybe a chess history fact? EDIT: Man - epic is no joke!... LOVE this.
- janalsncm 3y agoReally 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.
- ramly 3y agoThank 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=EPIC&level_date=2024-03-15 https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
- BoiledCabbage 3y agoHe is saying cut out the concept of lives entirely. It seems like a distraction. What is the point of lives?
- ramly 3y agoAh sorry I misunderstood! The concept of lives actually arose from a lot of playtesting and valuable feedback during the beta. Many players were feeling that there is no real 'cost' to brute-forcing the exploration of every possible path on the board. Granted, the time complexity of doing so is really high. But from an emotional standpoint, beta testers seemed to appreciate more often than not the adrenaline rush that comes with a low number of remaining lives and the renewed focus that comes with it. One playtester mentioned that they only felt they got to the 'flow' state and finally resolved an exceptionally hard level when they were calculating every move on their last life.
- BoiledCabbage 3y agoAh I see, thanks for the explanation!
- khazhoux 3y agoVery clever. Congrats!
- ramly 3y agoThanks! Really appreciate the support. If you're up for a real challenge, check out this puzzle: https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=EPIC&level_date=2024-03-21 https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E... Looks super innocent but has already stumped a GM. Happy to give hints if you'd like. gl :)
- ggjkvcxddd 3y agoECHO CHESS Mar 21 (E) ♟ 2:26 sec 1/8 tries 14 moves Fun little logic puzzles for sure. Nice job! edit: HN stripped the emoji but I did solve it, lol
- ramly 3y agoYou got it in one try only? Very impressive tbh. Glad you're enjoying it @ggjkvcxddd ECHO CHESS Mar 26 (C) ♟ 0:21 sec 2/8 tries 12 moves
- filleduchaos 3y agoI'm not sure I'm getting the right one - this has a bishop, a knight, a king and a pawn - but this is my result: ECHO CHESS Mar 22 (C) ♟ 0:25 sec 1/8 tries 5 moves Edit: it's definitely the wrong one, from poking around the site out of confusion it turns out you have to be logged in to access previous days' puzzles - but the game page itself does absolutely nothing to tell you this and just loads today's puzzle if you open an archive link. I don't exactly feel like handing over my phone number just to play a puzzle game. Bummer, I guess.
- RIMR 3y agoFinally, Chess 2.
- ramly 3y agoWow that's a huge statement, thank you :) do you play a lot of chess @RIMR?
- pjmlp 3y agoWhat a great idea, quite addictive.
- ramly 3y agoGlad you're enjoying it! Thanks for the support. Any suggestions for improvements you'd like to see?
- pjmlp 3y agoUnless I missed, maybe some description of the goal, in the beggining it wasn't quite clear to me that the goal was to capture the whole pieces, and only a subset of chess rules are available.
- ramly 3y agoOhh good point. This is the current content of the Rules page: https://echochess.com/rules.html https://echochess.com/rules.html any ideas how to improve that in terms of text or visuals for further clarity?
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoThis is a lot of fun and surprisingly tricky to calculate. One point of feedback: it would be cool if after solving it told you what the lowest possible number of moves was for that puzzle. It seems to just tell me the lowest number I've done?0
- ramly 3y agoThanks! Glad you're enjoying the echo chess variant. It does show you at the end - there's like a progress bar with how many moves you got and what the best known number of moves is. Is it not displaying correctly on your end?
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoOh I'm sorry, I must've solved both dailies optimally on the first try then :P So I misunderstood, thinking it was telling me my personal best.
- ramly 3y agoI think this is low key the biggest flex in the history of echo chess dailies.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago:D Looking forward to tomorrow's daily!
- ramly 3y agoI got you haha
- chedoku 3y agoThere is something unique about this game. Very minimalistic at the same time I think the game would not be as fun if the puzzles were not designed the way they are. Thanks, very interesting.
- ramly 3y agoHelp! Hey guys, thanks for all the love. So many people playing the game right now, the site is starting to crash and is showing default puzzles instead of today's dailies :') anyone here can help?
- figers 3y agoLove it, solved in 6 moves... looking forward to the iOS app... Would be nice if there was an email textbox for a mailing list to be notified when it's ready so I don't forget about it
- gverrilla 3y agoI 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 chess scenarios or other games that are following the same trend recently (without a proper reasoning).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chedoku 3y agoHi, Check puzzle archive or Zen mode. Infinite number of puzzles are waiting for you.
- TheRealPomax 3y agoYou're not getting my phone number, thanks. If you just want to send a code, and you want to tie it to some kind of identifier token, take the less-than-a-day that it takes to add normal "trusted third party" authentication, where you ask google/facebook/github/whoever to confirm this is a real person. And then you don't have to save any personal information, either (which laws both in the US and EU say includes phone numbers), which means you also can't LEAK personal information when someone inevitably gets into your database.
- chedoku 3y agozen-mode does not need you phone number.
- TheRealPomax 3y agobut then that wasn't the only thing you mentioned. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39829237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39829237
- himinlomax 3y agoWhy do you need my phone number?
- aendruk 3y agoYep, I just closed the tab at that point.
- ramly 3y agoHey guys, super fair feedback, sorry for missing the mark on this as I was trying to keep the login flow convenient for mobile users through Twilio Verify code. See more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39831178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39831178 Really appreciate the callout. Very fair point. Will change this for sure to email/username or similar. Will keep improving on the game thanks to you guys' input. Thanks!
- thih9 3y agoI like it, but I find it frustrating that zen mode is timed and that I have to login to access past puzzles - I don't find it enjoyable or worth it with these constrains.
- ramly 3y agoThanks for the helpful input on this. Concerning the zen mode constraint, do you feel like the countdown timer is what's feeling off-putting to you, or is it the combo reset on shuffling? Many players who love this mode are also fans of blitz chess. Curious if you're into rapid/bullet modes in general or that's not really your cup of tea.
- chedoku 3y agoNot happy about it too. but the trick is to refresh the page and press shuffle to get a new puzzle. ;)
- thih9 3y agoI see no shuffle button, at least not on mobile, refreshing didn’t help. Edit: ah, you mean in zen mode - true, it’s there. Then again, the timer is still running, which I find annoying.
- latexr 3y agoThe idea isn’t bad, but I’m struggling to understand why a login is required to access an archive of free content, and why said login requires a phone number. Again, to access ostensibly free content. That makes me really suspicious about what you do with the phone number.
- quantxx 3y agoEven if they do absolutely nothing with the number, I'm not putting it in. It's not a question of their intention but my convenience and peace of mind.
- ramly 3y ago100% fair. Sorry about that quantxx. The mobile login was only meant to facilitate the login for mobile users through quick Twilio verification. Will move that to username or email instead. Really appreciate the feedback.
- menotyou 3y agoWhat do you need the email for?
- ijijijjij 3y agoreddit has the worst dark pattern in this case... I think most people think they need an email address to signup... yet you can just click next and skip email input... I have about 40 reddit accounts with no emails associated with them... first one was probably created 15 years ago, and last one yesterday
- ijijijjij 3y agohe said username OR email...
- ramly 3y agoThanks guys, super helpful feedback! Sorry about that, the Twilio phone login was meant to make it more convenient for the mobile users to keep going with a direct code. I can totally see how that's perceived though, you're 100% correct. Will be changing the auth to username or email instead. Very helpful feedback, will get this right. Thanks again for the feedback guys.
- albert_e 3y agooff topic: is the background music inspired by "We are the robots"?
- ramly 3y agoTIL this song exists and my life has already improved. Thank you for this hidden gem.
- a1o 3y agoI thought you were not supposed to be on "death" reach from the non playable pieces but apparently this doesn't matter.
- dang 3y agoRelated: Echo Chess: The Quest for Solvability - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37327895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37327895 - Aug 2023 (106 comments)
- ramly 3y agoThank you dang for your support from the earliest days of this game. Very thankful for welcoming me into the HN community with echo chess.
- lxgr 3y agoNice! One nit: I had to (or at least was able to) capture the king in the puzzle, which just feels wrong somehow. Would be great if normal chess rules on checks could still apply, but probably make it too complicated?
- ramly 3y agoI feel you haha. Don't worry though, in Echo Chess a king is pretty much equivalent to a queen given that it's always your turn. Obviously move counts are different and the struggle in Zen Mode is real.
- ijijijjij 3y agowhat feels strange is that almost none of chess rules apply...
- ramly 3y agoThat's a pretty interesting perspective given that all pieces in EC follow standard chess movements and capturing mechanisms. It's certainly a variant, which makes it more interesting imho. In the puzzle world you could refer to such a game as a chess-like.
- ramly 3y agoSite back up online! Thank you everyone for bearing with me on this and sorry for keeping you waiting with the wrong daily puzzle config. You guys literally broke the game. GG HN. GG.
- hayst4ck 3y agoThe 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.
- ramly 3y agoGreat 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.
- hayst4ck 3y agoI 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 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.
- jncfhnb 3y agoThe hearts at the bottom confused me. As did the score at the end.