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.
* jumping onto a field under attack sends the knight to a random new location instead of deducting points
* configurable board size with the number of black pieces adjusted. the classic 8x8 board with 16 black pieces could be one preconfigured choice
* multiple white knights.
* a random black piece moves after each jump of the white knight
I think this game would be perfect for a young kids chess club. Nice job!
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!
i love looking at a board and try to figure out the best order of moves to get the most points.
not that i am very good at it, but it's fun and addictive.
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.
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.
Oh no! Your browser probably decided to clean up the RAM or something. I'm not sure if there's a way for the page to "ask" the platform not to clean it, perhaps I could simulate user input. Will research this later.
Puzzle of the day and increasing penalty are great suggestion, thanks!
There must be a 'relative position' though in the mix of the algorithm, because on some levels the pieces are scattered in the four corners and some others they are on 'perfect-knight-stepping-sequence' so I could take 5-6 pieces in 5-6 moves and then exit.
whenever given, read instructions carefully.
capture as many capturables as possible. get to the light at the end last.
PS: it's a knight and can only move like that one hockey club shaped Tetris block
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)
Love the game a lot!
EDIT: Just scraped through level 9 with zero moves left. Felt tense.
If you haven't seen it yet, lichess.org has a bunch of fun content
https://lichess.org/training (it's labeled "Puzzles" in the UI; there's a difficulty picker hidden in the bottom left of the page)
They have mobile apps, too, although regrettably not all content is available on the app for some horrible reason
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
1) Gotta think how to do this, since the levels are randomly generated. Perhaps go with the custom seed like they do in some games...
2) Great suggestion, gonna do it soon.
3) Added "full rules" section to the intro screen.
[1]. https://rakhim.exotext.com/knight-ride-a-game-about-rogue-ch...
I wish I could kill the sound.
Otherwise, everything seems to work.