Learn to play

Two players, White and Black, each start with sixteen pieces on an 8×8 board. White moves first, then you take turns. The goal is to trap the other side's king.

Capturing. Move onto a square an enemy piece stands on and it's taken off the board. Only the knight can jump over other pieces.

Check. When a piece attacks the king, the king is in check, and its side must get out of it on their turn: move the king, block the attack, or capture the attacker. You can never make a move that leaves your own king in check.

Checkmate. In check with no way out: that side loses (in Stupidchess, unless they still have a card to play: see the last stand below). Stalemate is the opposite trap: not in check, but with no legal move at all. It's a draw.

Pawn tricks. A pawn that reaches the far side of the board promotes: you swap it for a queen, rook, bishop or knight. And a pawn that races two squares past an enemy pawn can be taken en passant, as if it had moved one, but only on the very next turn.

Castling. Once per game, your king can move two squares toward one of your rooks, and that rook hops over to the square the king just crossed. It only works if neither piece has moved yet, nothing stands between them, and the king isn't in check, doesn't cross an attacked square and doesn't land on one.

Everything above still holds, until a card says otherwise. Cards grant new movement, freeze or shield pieces, slide or rotate the whole board, bring captured pieces back, set traps, and plenty more. Each card says exactly what it does.

A turn

• Move a piece. Every turn needs at least one board move. A card on its own is never a turn.
• Play at most one card, before or after your move. Cards that grant extra moves let you move again in the same turn.
• End your turn. Your clock stops and your opponent's starts. Each side has ten minutes for the whole game.

Instants and Actives

An Instant (the lightning mark) can be played on your opponent's turn, any time you hold one and can pay for it. Nothing pauses: the game and the clocks keep running. An Active stays face-up in your actives pile with an ongoing effect instead of being discarded, until something destroys it.

Reading the board

Cards leave marks on the board that stay after the card is gone. When your opponent plays one, this is what you'll see:

• Frozen. A blue square with the turns left on it. The piece can't move until the freeze wears off.
• Frozen solid. A blue square with no turn count. The piece can't move, and the freeze never wears off on its own: only a Thaw card frees it.
• Shielded. A blue bubble round the piece. It can't be captured while the shield lasts.
• Armored. A double border round the square. The piece can't be captured until a Weapon card breaks the armor.
• On fire. An orange square and a flame. Unless it's doused, the piece burns away in a couple of turns.
• Moving as another piece. A small piece symbol in the square's corner, with the turns it lasts. The piece moves like that piece for now (a knight marked ♖ moves like a rook), on top of what it already does.
• Can jump walls. A hop mark (↷) on the piece. For a few turns it can step onto a wall, which breaks it.
• Made king. A crown on a piece that isn't a king. A card made it the king for a turn: checks, checkmate and traps that kill a king all count against it, and the real king wears a faded crown meanwhile.
• A pile. A piece with small pieces lined up under it shares the square with them. Only the top one moves or can be taken; the rest are safe until it's gone.
• A wall. A brown block on an empty square. Nothing moves onto or through it, unless a card gives a piece Jump. It crumbles after a few turns.
• Traps. Laid face down: only the player who set one sees it. Most catch the first enemy piece to land on them. A Landmine or Claymore hits anyone, and a king caught by one loses the game.
• Extra ground. Warm-tinted squares past the edge of the 8×8 board, opened by Break Ground or Breakout. They play like any other square for the rest of the game.
• The margin. Pieces sent off the board, shown in a strip along its right edge, each colour at its own end. They're safe but can't act until they're Rallied back to the square they left, and Close the Border captures them all.

How the cards work

Your deck. You bring a 52-card deck you built. You start with a hand of seven (don't like it? shuffle it back and redraw), and each turn starts with a card dealt from your deck while you hold fewer than seven. End the turn with seven cards or fewer.

The cards run on Braincells. Playing a Braincell card banks one; the number on each card is what it costs to play. Spare Braincells also buy thirty seconds of clock.

Extra costs. Some cards want more than Braincells, and show it as icons under the cost on the card's edge: a card icon to discard other cards from your hand, a skull to sacrifice one of your own pieces, and a gift to give back a piece you captured to your opponent, who gets it back on the board. You pay all of it when you play the card.

How a game ends

Checkmate, a clock running out, or someone resigning. Stalemate is a draw, and so is a game you both agree to call one: against a person online, Offer draw sits beside Forfeit. Some cards add their own ways to lose. Read them before you play them.

The last stand. Checkmate isn't always the end. If the mated side has any card they could play (a draw, or a playable card in hand), they get one more turn to find a way out, and their name is tagged last stand. Still mated after that, they lose. Stalemate works the same way: a side with no legal move but a card that could give it one gets that turn, and if it's still stuck after it, the game is a draw. Over a real board there's no last stand: the app can't see the position.

Every turn needs a move. On a digital board you can't play a card that would leave you with no legal move while you still owe one this turn: the game refuses it and nothing changes. Make your move first, or pass the card.