[HN Gopher] Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Chess puzzle, but you are what you capture
        
       Author : chedoku
       Score  : 126 points
       Date   : 2024-03-26 04:46 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (echochess.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (echochess.com)
        
       | hakzuni wrote:
       | Such groovy music and a cool mechanic!
       | 
       | ECHO CHESS Mar 25 (C)
       | 
       | 
       | 0:27 sec 1/8 tries 14 moves
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | were you able to solve today's EPIC puzzle?
        
           | FreakLegion wrote:
           | Apparently it could've been better.
           | 
           | ECHO CHESS Mar 25 (E)
           | 
           | 1:31 sec 1/8 tries 15 moves
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | ECHO CHESS Mar 25 (E)
             | 
             | 0:18 sec 1/8 tries 13 moves
        
               | chedoku wrote:
               | ECHO CHESS Mar 26 (C)
               | 
               | 2:09 sec 6/8 tries 21 moves
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | 2:09 sec. well played!
        
       | sparky_z wrote:
       | So is the idea that the dark red squares are inaccessible and you
       | just can't move to them? I spent way too long trying to figure
       | that out. I was stuck thinking along the lines of not being able
       | to to move into check, even after transformation to another
       | piece.
        
         | sparky_z wrote:
         | Also, on Firefox for android, you can't move pieces downward.
         | The browser hijacks the "drag down" gesture and refreshes the
         | page.
        
           | anilakar wrote:
           | The drag down gesture in Firefox was disabled last year
           | because it interfered with page content. Are you running an
           | old version or did you explicitly re-enable that behavior
           | somehow?
        
             | whutsurnaym wrote:
             | It was re-enable by default last week, in version 124.
        
               | anilakar wrote:
               | Interesting. I'm running the developer edition everywhere
               | and they didn't apparently consider it necessary to re-
               | enable it there :-)
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | sorry to hear about that! do you mind sharing which device
           | and version of android you're on? I believe what anilakar
           | said is correct
        
           | TrianguloY wrote:
           | Workaround: pick the piece and move the finger upwards, then
           | you can freely move it around (as in, instead of press-down-
           | release, do press-up-down-release).
           | 
           | The pull to refresh has been very broken since forever.
           | Apparently they enabled it by default in the latest version
           | because it was "very stable" but I'm not so sure...
        
           | chedoku wrote:
           | Drag selection is problematic on mobile devices. Click and
           | select is the way to go.
        
         | Retr0id wrote:
         | Yup, you can't move to them. Weirdly I didn't notice them at
         | all until several attempts in (and was getting confused as to
         | why certain moves weren't allowed), in a way that reminded me
         | of the Selective Attention Test[0]. Once I'd clocked them I was
         | able to solve it pretty quickly.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | That Selective Attention experiment always amazes me. It's
           | like one of those things that shouldn't really work but they
           | somehow do. Like welding an impossible triangle.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Correct. Apologies for not making that clearer! in some puzzles
         | it is much more obvious than today's because the obstacles
         | connect to create long connected walls:
         | https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
        
           | tvst wrote:
           | Maybe make them look like rocks or brick walls?
        
             | Retr0id wrote:
             | A more minimalist approach might be a small "x" in the
             | center of each square.
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | That's a good point. Experimented with a few "big" X's
               | before and it just wasn't doing it. The small x in the
               | center might actually be it.
        
               | ekojon wrote:
               | Nah, try the universal "don't go here" indicator of close
               | diagonal lines like you see in parking lots. Keep the
               | shading of the lines and the square background relatively
               | similar so they convey the message without distracting
               | from the rest of the board.
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | Yeah I think that might actually be a good idea to try out.
             | I tested a few things with shapes during the beta but they
             | kept looking too '3D'ish for the rest of the theme. Not
             | sure if I'm explaining it right but the obstacle shapes
             | kept popping out of the background somehow. Do you know
             | what I mean?
        
       | mg wrote:
       | Cool idea.
       | 
       | I have the feeling this would be even much better without the red
       | squares and with a regular sized board. And that it would feel
       | more logical and interesting to me.
       | 
       | Or is it impossible to create challenging puzzles without the red
       | squares?
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | have you seen this one:
         | https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
        
           | ddejohn wrote:
           | For me, that links to the current daily. I also get the same
           | puzzle when selecting the daily epic. Using Firefox.
           | 
           | Here are some screenshots:
           | 
           | https://i.imgur.com/ZJ36abU.png
           | 
           | https://i.imgur.com/3Ft0Zqr.png
           | 
           | https://i.imgur.com/ijHythf.png
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | FYI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39828765
             | 
             | Fixing this asap. Thanks for reporting ddejohn!
        
               | ddejohn wrote:
               | Thanks! Wonderful game. Excited for the mobile app.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | it's a ~normal chess board (6x6) with no obstacles but with the
         | echo chess variant mechanics
        
       | zzo38computer wrote:
       | I have seen it mentioned before. It does not work on my computer,
       | but I wrote an implementation that does (in Free Hero Mesh, which
       | is a programming language that I invented for making up puzzle
       | games). However, I do not have the puzzles. Do you have a copy of
       | the puzzles?
        
         | chedoku wrote:
         | Can you share it with us?
        
           | zzo38computer wrote:
           | Here it is:                 (InputXY)              (Control
           | (INIT $Cursor 1 1 0 0 Create =@cur)       )
           | ($Cursor         Player         (Image "Cursor0" "Cursor1")
           | (DefaultImage ())         (Density -10)         (CREATE LOOP
           | 0 1 50 Animate)       )              ($Tile         (Image
           | "Tile0" "Tile1")         (Density 10)         (INIT Loc + 1
           | band =Image)         (CLICK @cur ,ObjBelow #Move Loc ,Send .
           | 1)       )              ($White         Input         (Image
           | "P" "N" "B" "R" "Q" "K")         (CLICK @cur Loc ,MoveTo)
           | (#Move           ,:movable           if             Arg1 Arg2
           | MoveTo .             Arg3 if               From ,Image =Image
           | From ,Destroy .               (=P $Black) lnot if WinLevel
           | then             then             @cur Loc ,MoveTo .
           | then         )         (:movable           Image (case
           | (0 :pawn)             (1 :knight)             (2 :bishop)
           | (3 :rook)             (4 :queen)             (5 :king)
           | )         )         (:pawn Yloc Arg2 1 + eq Xloc Arg1 Delta
           | Arg3 eq land)         (:knight Xloc Arg1 Delta dup * Yloc
           | Arg2 Delta dup * + 5 eq)         (:bishop Xloc Arg1 Delta
           | Yloc Arg2 Delta eq if =:queen else 0 then)         (:rook
           | Xloc Arg1 Delta Yloc Arg2 Delta land if 0 else =:queen then)
           | (:queen From Seek =%d Loc begin %d NewXY over over ObjTopAt
           | dup From eq if . . ret then ,Class $Tile ne until . . 0)
           | (:king From Chebyshev 1 eq)         (#Destroy           From
           | Self ne if             From #Move Loc 1 ,SendEx .
           | then           Destroyed lnot         )         ('D
           | @cur Coloc if             $White #Destroy Loc BroadcastAnd .
           | then         )       )              ($Black         (Image
           | "PB" "NB" "BB" "RB" "QB" "KB")         (CLICK @cur ,ObjBelow
           | #Move Loc 1 ,SendEx . 1)       )
           | 
           | (Free Hero Mesh itself can be found on GitHub at
           | https://github.com/zzo38/freeheromesh)
        
       | ramly wrote:
       | 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/
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | ...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
        
           | blakesley wrote:
           | 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?
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | 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
        
             | samstave wrote:
             | 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)
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | 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?gam
               | e_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
        
               | samstave wrote:
               | 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.
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | 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.
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | 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!
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | (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?)
        
               | samstave wrote:
               | Rewatch
        
               | chedoku wrote:
               | 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
        
               | samstave wrote:
               | 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!_
        
         | keyle wrote:
         | I'd love it on mobile as a native game.
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | Will be coming very soon! What device/OS would you expect as
           | a priority?
        
             | FabioFleitas wrote:
             | Not OP, but would definitely enjoy this in iOS
        
             | fsflover wrote:
             | How about a web app?
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | Isn't it already a web app?
        
           | chedoku wrote:
           | What is the issue with having it as a web app?
        
         | chedoku wrote:
         | Simple and minimalistic desing but hard to solve. Love it.
         | Thanks Sami.
        
         | Waterluvian wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | 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?
        
             | Waterluvian wrote:
             | 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!
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | Makes total sense, very helpful nuance. Will keep that in
               | mind!
        
             | otteromkram wrote:
             | 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.
        
           | vlw wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | Waterluvian wrote:
             | Yes and no. How many "daily" web games play music?
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | 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!
        
         | romellem wrote:
         | 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?
        
       | janalsncm wrote:
       | Really cool! It would be nice if there was an icon on the
       | inaccessible squares to indicate it. I also didn't feel the lives
       | counter at the bottom was necessary. And like others have
       | mentioned, click->square is better in some cases for
       | accessibility reasons.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Thank you janalsncm, very helpful feedback! Will take note of
         | all these. Concerning the lives not feeling necessary, do you
         | mind sharing how many attempts it took you to solve the puzzle?
         | 
         | Still trying to hone in on the ideal number of lives for each
         | mode. Some puzzles _definitely_ would need more lives than
         | others. For example:
         | https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
        
           | BoiledCabbage wrote:
           | He is saying cut out the concept of lives entirely. It seems
           | like a distraction. What is the point of lives?
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | Ah sorry I misunderstood! The concept of lives actually
             | arose from a lot of playtesting and valuable feedback
             | during the beta. Many players were feeling that there is no
             | real 'cost' to brute-forcing the exploration of every
             | possible path on the board.
             | 
             | Granted, the time complexity of doing so is really high.
             | But from an emotional standpoint, beta testers seemed to
             | appreciate more often than not the adrenaline rush that
             | comes with a low number of remaining lives and the renewed
             | focus that comes with it. One playtester mentioned that
             | they only felt they got to the 'flow' state and finally
             | resolved an exceptionally hard level when they were
             | calculating every move on their last life.
        
               | BoiledCabbage wrote:
               | Ah I see, thanks for the explanation!
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | Sure thing. Keep in mind by the way that it's actually
               | already prohibitively difficult for a player to truly
               | brute-force their way around the board, especially in
               | larger boards. Below is a rough intuition-based proof of
               | why that is.
               | 
               | If you think about the chess board in abstracted terms,
               | you can actually map an echo chess puzzle to a graph
               | theory problem. First, you disregard any empty squares,
               | and you consider each piece-square as a node, with its
               | neighboring nodes being any node that can be reached from
               | this node using any number of >0 valid moves without
               | reaching any interim node on the way.
               | 
               | Using that process, you can now convert an entire echo
               | chess board into a graph where each chess piece is a
               | single node. Now you can ask the question, "what is the
               | objective of solving an echo chess puzzle in terms of
               | this graph?"
               | 
               | It turns out that since the goal is to clear all pieces
               | of the board, and in order to clear pieces we have to
               | reach their corresponding square, then in graph terms our
               | goal is to visit every node. However we can only visit
               | every node once at most (because once a piece is
               | captured, it is taken off the board).
               | 
               | In other words, an echo chess puzzle is the same as
               | "visiting every node on the graph exactly once". That's
               | the HPP which is NP-complete, and if you're looking for
               | the shortest HPP, it's even NP-hard.
               | 
               | TL;DR: brute-forcing as a player is not the optimal
               | strategy.
        
       | khazhoux wrote:
       | Very clever. Congrats!
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Thanks! Really appreciate the support. If you're up for a
         | _real_ challenge, check out this puzzle:
         | https://echochess.com/game.html?game_mode=DAILY&level_type=E...
         | 
         | Looks super innocent but has already stumped a GM. Happy to
         | give hints if you'd like. gl :)
        
           | ggjkvcxddd wrote:
           | ECHO CHESS Mar 21 (E)
           | 
           | 
           | 2:26 sec 1/8 tries 14 moves
           | 
           | Fun little logic puzzles for sure. Nice job!
           | 
           | edit: HN stripped the emoji but I did solve it, lol
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | You got it in _one_ try only? Very impressive tbh. Glad you
             | 're enjoying it @ggjkvcxddd
             | 
             | ECHO CHESS Mar 26 (C)
             | 
             | 
             | 0:21 sec 2/8 tries 12 moves
        
           | filleduchaos wrote:
           | I'm not sure I'm getting the right one - this has a bishop, a
           | knight, a king and a pawn - but this is my result:
           | 
           | ECHO CHESS Mar 22 (C)
           | 
           | 
           | 0:25 sec 1/8 tries 5 moves
           | 
           | Edit: it's definitely the wrong one, from poking around the
           | site out of confusion it turns out you have to be logged in
           | to access previous days' puzzles - but the game page itself
           | does absolutely nothing to tell you this and just loads
           | today's puzzle if you open an archive link.
           | 
           | I don't exactly feel like handing over my phone number just
           | to play a puzzle game. Bummer, I guess.
        
       | RIMR wrote:
       | Finally, Chess 2.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Wow that's a huge statement, thank you :) do you play a lot of
         | chess @RIMR?
        
       | pjmlp wrote:
       | What a great idea, quite addictive.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Glad you're enjoying it! Thanks for the support. Any
         | suggestions for improvements you'd like to see?
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Unless I missed, maybe some description of the goal, in the
           | beggining it wasn't quite clear to me that the goal was to
           | capture the whole pieces, and only a subset of chess rules
           | are available.
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | Ohh good point. This is the current content of the Rules
             | page: https://echochess.com/rules.html
             | 
             | any ideas how to improve that in terms of text or visuals
             | for further clarity?
        
       | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
       | This is a lot of fun and surprisingly tricky to calculate. One
       | point of feedback: it would be cool if after solving it told you
       | what the lowest possible number of moves was for that puzzle. It
       | seems to just tell me the lowest number I've done?0
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the echo chess variant. It does
         | show you at the end - there's like a progress bar with how many
         | moves you got and what the best known number of moves is. Is it
         | not displaying correctly on your end?
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | Oh I'm sorry, I must've solved both dailies optimally on the
           | first try then :P So I misunderstood, thinking it was telling
           | me my personal best.
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | I think this is low key the biggest flex in the history of
             | echo chess dailies.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | :D
               | 
               | Looking forward to tomorrow's daily!
        
               | ramly wrote:
               | I got you haha
        
       | chedoku wrote:
       | There is something unique about this game. Very minimalistic at
       | the same time I think the game would not be as fun if the puzzles
       | were not designed the way they are. Thanks, very interesting.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Thank you chedoku, I appreciate all the support. A lof of love
         | has gone into making this game. Which one was your favorite
         | puzzle?
        
           | chedoku wrote:
           | I am sorry but Chedodu is subjectively better ;)
        
       | ramly wrote:
       | Help! Hey guys, thanks for all the love. So many people playing
       | the game right now, the site is starting to crash and is showing
       | default puzzles instead of today's dailies :') anyone here can
       | help?
        
         | ninju wrote:
         | HN hug of death
         | 
         | Sorry
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | Trying my best to fix this asap guys. Hugging you all back,
           | thanks for all the support.
        
       | figers wrote:
       | Love it, solved in 6 moves... looking forward to the iOS app...
       | 
       | Would be nice if there was an email textbox for a mailing list to
       | be notified when it's ready so I don't forget about it
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Great point actually. Will add that, thanks figers! echo chess
         | is already a progressive web app fyi, you can install it
         | directly from the website if you want. but yes, a native iOS
         | app would be great as well.
        
         | xandrius wrote:
         | Got it in 5 :O
        
       | gverrilla wrote:
       | I like the game, and the website, but this daily format combined
       | with how fast the game is to play doesn't get me engaged enough
       | to save it to my favbar and return - I just didn't have enough
       | time to get hooked and really dislike artificial scarcity like
       | this. Wordle worked imo because it's so immersive and it's not as
       | rapid to conclude - also because there is a very limited set of 5
       | words in english comparing to chess scenarios or other games that
       | are following the same trend recently (without a proper
       | reasoning).
        
         | chedoku wrote:
         | Hi, Check puzzle archive or Zen mode. Infinite number of
         | puzzles are waiting for you.
        
           | TheRealPomax wrote:
           | You're not getting my phone number, thanks.
           | 
           | If you just want to send a code, and you want to tie it to
           | some kind of identifier token, take the less-than-a-day that
           | it takes to add normal "trusted third party" authentication,
           | where you ask google/facebook/github/whoever to confirm this
           | is a real person.
           | 
           | And then you don't have to save any personal information,
           | either (which laws both in the US and EU say includes phone
           | numbers), which means you also can't LEAK personal
           | information when someone inevitably gets into your database.
        
             | chedoku wrote:
             | zen-mode does not need you phone number.
        
               | TheRealPomax wrote:
               | but then that wasn't the only thing you mentioned.
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39829237
        
             | ramly wrote:
             | Hey TheRealPomax, just reading this. Super fair point about
             | the phone number. It was only meant to be there for keeping
             | the login convenient for mobile users through Twilio
             | verify. Totally see your point though and I can see how
             | this could be interpreted instead. Will be changing this to
             | email/username instead. Really appreciate the feedback,
             | it's incredibly helpful. Thank you.
        
               | zamadatix wrote:
               | Why does the user need to login to access that section in
               | the first place?
        
       | himinlomax wrote:
       | Why do you need my phone number?
        
         | aendruk wrote:
         | Yep, I just closed the tab at that point.
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Hey guys, super fair feedback, sorry for missing the mark on
         | this as I was trying to keep the login flow convenient for
         | mobile users through Twilio Verify code. See more here:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39831178
         | 
         | Really appreciate the callout. Very fair point. Will change
         | this for sure to email/username or similar. Will keep improving
         | on the game thanks to you guys' input. Thanks!
        
       | thih9 wrote:
       | I like it, but I find it frustrating that zen mode is timed and
       | that I have to login to access past puzzles - I don't find it
       | enjoyable or worth it with these constrains.
        
         | chedoku wrote:
         | Not happy about it too. but the trick is to refresh the page
         | and press shuffle to get a new puzzle. ;)
        
           | thih9 wrote:
           | I see no shuffle button, at least not on mobile, refreshing
           | didn't help.
           | 
           | Edit: ah, you mean in zen mode - true, it's there. Then
           | again, the timer is still running, which I find annoying.
        
       | latexr wrote:
       | The idea isn't bad, but I'm struggling to understand why a login
       | is required to access an archive of free content, and why said
       | login requires a phone number. Again, to access ostensibly free
       | content.
       | 
       | That makes me really suspicious about what you do with the phone
       | number.
        
         | quantxx wrote:
         | Even if they do absolutely nothing with the number, I'm not
         | putting it in. It's not a question of their intention but my
         | convenience and peace of mind.
        
           | ramly wrote:
           | 100% fair. Sorry about that quantxx. The mobile login was
           | only meant to facilitate the login for mobile users through
           | quick Twilio verification. Will move that to username or
           | email instead. Really appreciate the feedback.
        
             | menotyou wrote:
             | What do you need the email for?
        
               | ijijijjij wrote:
               | he said username OR email...
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Thanks guys, super helpful feedback! Sorry about that, the
         | Twilio phone login was meant to make it more convenient for the
         | mobile users to keep going with a direct code. I can totally
         | see how that's perceived though, you're 100% correct. Will be
         | changing the auth to username or email instead.
         | 
         | Very helpful feedback, will get this right. Thanks again for
         | the feedback guys.
        
           | williamdclt wrote:
           | Save yourself from the burden of holding people's personal
           | data if you can. It comes with legal responsibilities
        
           | ijijijjij wrote:
           | can't wait for the day when no email or phone number will be
           | required anywhere for signup. _keep dreaming_
        
       | albert_e wrote:
       | off topic:
       | 
       | is the background music inspired by "We are the robots"?
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | TIL this song exists and my life has already improved. Thank
         | you for this hidden gem.
        
       | a1o wrote:
       | I thought you were not supposed to be on "death" reach from the
       | non playable pieces but apparently this doesn't matter.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _Echo Chess: The Quest for Solvability_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37327895 - Aug 2023 (106
       | comments)
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | Thank you dang for your support from the earliest days of this
         | game. Very thankful for welcoming me into the HN community with
         | echo chess.
        
       | lxgr wrote:
       | Nice!
       | 
       | One nit: I had to (or at least was able to) capture the king in
       | the puzzle, which just feels wrong somehow.
       | 
       | Would be great if normal chess rules on checks could still apply,
       | but probably make it too complicated?
        
         | ramly wrote:
         | I feel you haha. Don't worry though, in Echo Chess a king is
         | pretty much equivalent to a queen given that it's always your
         | turn. Obviously move counts are different and the struggle in
         | Zen Mode is real.
        
       | ijijijjij wrote:
       | what feels strange is that almost none of chess rules apply...
        
       | ramly wrote:
       | Site back up online! Thank you everyone for bearing with me on
       | this and sorry for keeping you waiting with the wrong daily
       | puzzle config. You guys literally broke the game. GG HN. GG.
        
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