Hacker News Reader

Comment by ramly | Hacker News Reader

Hey 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/

View on HN

I like the music, but consider starting it muted and only downloading 3.6MB of mp3 if someone unmutes.

This might be a good idea because it's typical that web games like this usually don't play music or even sounds. It's kind of a context thing? If in a game app, music and sounds are expected... if it's a website, not so much.

This would also help reduce the fairly large download that makes the game a bit chonky to load.

Thanks Waterluvian, that's actually a really good point. Do you feel the same about the rest of the sound effects, or is it mostly the music starting as ON in the context of a web game that feels unexpected?

Not to original person you replied to here, but I usually don't like sound effects or music for web gsmes. Having both muted to start would be ideal.

Good point otteromkram. Thanks for the input

Music is 9/10ths of it. If it played sounds that’s generally fine as long as they can be muted. But I personally feel strongly that music should start muted if it’s a webpage.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to feedback!

Makes total sense, very helpful nuance. Will keep that in mind!

I don't agree, most games (even web games) play music. A "normal" website should not play music, I agree. But this is a game.

Plus I for one liked the cute sound effects and didn't even think about the music as something unusual.

Yes and no. How many “daily” web games play music?

That's very nice to hear, thank you vlw. I think there is a good argument on both sides. This is one of those areas where I will definitely be making improvements down the line with a proper settings menu for sounds, visuals, etc. Really appreciate the feedback!

Fun game!

This seems similar to a game useChess - https://use-chess.fall-2023.reactjam.com - I played last year. Would you happen to be the same author?

First time I see that! Not the most intuitive interactions imho but fun game to try.

Really cool!

The only feedback I'd add is to make it more clear that the red squares are just inaccessible, because that wasn't at all clear at first. When failing to move a piece, the red squares together with a non-standard mechanic makes it unclear what you're missing.

Probably just some text at the top of the puzzle or a better UI cue would be enough.

Thanks edanm, really glad you're enjoying echo chess! Very good point, will iterate on that. Would it help if the obstacle squares had some pattern/texture in them or something like an 'x' inside instead of simply being a different color?

Yes, I believe that would help. Or perhaps make them appear "raised" or something like that - like a raised block that can't be traversed.

Yeah I tried experimenting with that a bit at the beginning. For some reason it kept looking too '3D-ish' compared to the rest of the flat material design. Do you have any visual examples you've seen of something closer to what you have in mind? Would be super helpful, thanks.

Sorry, I don't. Maybe just a rough texture would be good though.

Makes sense

I'd love it on mobile as a native game.

Will be coming very soon! What device/OS would you expect as a priority?

Not OP, but would definitely enjoy this in iOS

Thanks, that's helpful

How about a web app?

Isn't it already a web app?

Yep! It's accessible from any device/browser on echochess.com

you can actually install it locally on any device straight from there too (e.g. on iOS if you're in Safari you can tap share > add to Home Screen)

What is the issue with having it as a web app?

...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

Whoa, 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?

Thanks 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.

Simple and minimalistic desing but hard to solve. Love it. Thanks Sami.

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it and really grateful for the support

Super 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.

lmaooo your edit killed me @samstave. Glad you're enjoying echo chess!

and yes, some of the daily epic puzzles can be brutal :)

I think it might help to start with a certain strategy in mind. were you able to hone in on a strategy for that one yet? lmk if I can help

No help thanks - I've only just discovered this and I like it breaking off the slag from my rusty gears.

This would make a really cool watch-face for idling....

EDit: on second thought...

I cannot figure out how to kill the black pawn above me..

https://i.imgur.com/bGJUFu8.png

https://i.imgur.com/nOVjAYW.png

(A replay button would be great)

Hah yes it does look like an 'H'. If you prefer a much smaller but equally (or arguably more) challenging puzzle, try this one: https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...

This has me stumped

https://i.imgur.com/SVoXsjb.png

Yes, on hint, plz

---

I keep them both useful until I have to capture the queen - so one turns into the queen, and if I send a bishop to take the knight its stuck there because if I take the knight then with the queen - the queen becomes the knight... same with the pawn.

Yeah this puzzle is HARD. Sorry about that lol.

Here's a hint: can you try to keep both your white pieces useful after going down from the top section?

see if there's 2 bishops on a white square for example.

Sure thing, happy to help.

*SPOILER ALERT*

A good approach for clearing long columns of pawns in echo chess is usually to try to take the very first bottom pawn and to 'climb' up the column by successively taking one pawn at a time. If you can find a way to start from a pawn that's located as low as possible on a given column's side, it'll likely help in clearing a whole swatch of the board without leaving any extra pawns 'orphaned' on their own. Let me know if that makes sense and if you'd like me to provide anohter hint!

(btw for replay button do you mean specifically a button that allows you to Undo a certain move, or did you mean the ability to rewatch a whole game's sequence of moves after it's done?)

Rewatch

This is actually an interesting suggestion. Sometimes, things get so confusing that I wish I could remember how I ended up in that situation! :D

Yeah - if you cvan rewatch - then you can devise a better strategy -- or at least list the moves on the side?

But still needs the first suggestion:

"Thank you for subscribing to CHESS FACTS!"

nd it plays a random chess trivia fact with each move - but they are fake:

Did you know that the reason the King can only move one space? Because Henry the VIII had gout and couldt walk fast!

The queen can move so many spaces because old castles had escape tunnels for the queen and her maides so they wouldnt get raped when the castle was stormed!

wait o.O are these real chess facts or some meme hypotheticals? if the former then that's a huge TIL.

yes

Reply on news.ycombinator.com