LUKE’S ARCADE / FREE BROWSER GAME
Apex Flow Chess
Chess with two living medieval armies in a castle courtyard at sunset. The Azure Order in royal blue and polished silver faces the Crimson Legion in crimson and gold. Tap a piece and the squares it can reach glow; tap one and the character walks there. Every capture is a battle scene: soldiers and kings duel, knights couch their lances and charge, bishops hurl a bolt of holy light, siege towers lob a boulder, and the queen spins into a sword flourish. Checkmate cuts to a low camera on the beaten king. Free, no download, no account.
Eight rivals, beginner to grandmaster
Pick your opponent: Pip the Squire (about 400), Brother Tuck (700), Lady Rowena (1000), Sir Gareth (1300, loves to attack), Morgana (1600, sets traps), Baron Blackwood (1900, squeezes you positionally), Queen Isolde (2150) and the Dragon King (2400). Each has a portrait and something to say. Play with no clock or with blitz (3 + 2, 5 minutes), rapid (10, 15 + 10) or classical (30 minutes) time controls, and premove while the computer thinks.
Puzzles, lessons and help
- Daily puzzle: one new puzzle a day, the same for everyone. Solving it keeps your streak alive.
- Puzzle Rush: three minutes, three strikes, puzzles that climb in difficulty.
- Rated puzzles and famous mates: Fool’s mate, Scholar’s mate, the back-rank mate, smothered mate, Légal’s mate and Morphy’s Opera Game.
- Lessons: how each piece moves (collect the stars), check and checkmate, castling, en passant and promotion, then a first game with a coach.
- HINT shows the best move. After a game, GAME REVIEW marks every move from brilliant to blunder, shows the better move and gives both sides an accuracy score.
Your career
You get a game rating and a puzzle rating that rise and fall with your results, a daily streak, 28 achievements, and four armies to unlock: Viking Raiders, the Samurai Clan, the Undead Horde and the Dragon Riders, whose knights ride winged dragons. Everything is saved in your own browser.
How to play
- Tap or click one of your pieces, then a glowing square. Drag to look around, pinch or use the mouse wheel to zoom.
- On a computer: U undoes, N starts a new game, V turns the view, H asks for a hint, Escape lets go of the selected piece. In a review the arrow keys step through the moves.
- BATTLE SCENES can be FULL or QUICK; blitz games use quick scenes, and animation time never counts against your clock.
- COPY PGN puts the game in standard notation on your clipboard for any chess program.
Play a friend
Take turns on one phone, tablet or computer, with the board turning to whoever moves. Or play by link: make your move, send the link, and your friend answers with a link back. The whole game travels inside the link; nothing is stored on a server.
The rules
Every rule of chess is in: castling on both sides, en passant, promotion to any piece, check and checkmate, stalemate, draws by threefold repetition, the 50-move rule and insufficient material. On the clock a flag fall loses, unless the other side cannot possibly mate.
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