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Comment by jxmorris12 | Hacker News Reader

Got addicted to this game over the summer. Fun twist on chess puzzles and the upper levels get increasingly sophisticated. I think I got stuck on Level 13.

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Glad you're enjoying it. Making it to Level 13 is pretty awesome. I remember one of the early playtesters calling it 'the level from hell'.

Are you sure that level 13 is possible?

There doesn't seem to be a way to both take the f2 king and the a1 pawn. The b6 bishop can't reach either. The d1 pawn can only reach one or the other.

Absolutely :) It has more than one solution, with the optimal one using 35 moves. Have you tried solving level 12 first? The 'aha' moments in echo chess build up on each other one level at a time.

I have! It was a light and fun level. c:

Perfect. So the same mechanic learned in 12 can be leveraged in 13+. Obviously here timing is everything. I think 13 is a good example of a level where 'forward' or 'backward' passing alone won't be enough. It's almost like the best strategy to solve these mazes is 'middle out' (not to be confused with the infamous algorithm by Richard Hendricks).

Spoilers: Work your way to the a1 pawn, then a2 king can take the f2 king.

#nospoilers :')

I had that idea, but even with that, I'm still stuck. I get to a position with white king stuck behind the pawn on c3, with black pieces on a5, a6 and d6.

Or I start with dxe, take the white rook with the pawn, and end up with black pawn on a1 and white bishop on e6.

Another hint?

EDIT Oh never mind, finally got there. Just a slight tweak to the move order, which took forever to discover.

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