DARK FOREST
A CHESS VARIANT
Opponent
Time Control
No promotions.
Each piece is a cube: King on one face, another chess piece opposite. Other sides are blank decoys.
You move/capture as the face-up piece using standard chess rules.
Tilt a piece N/S/E/W by dragging it in that direction (no diagonal tilting). Tilts can't capture, but can be used to stack onto any piece — even enemies.
When stacked, you may make normal chess moves, tilt, or move downward to the ground. You can't capture pieces that are part of a stack from the base level, and pieces with others stacked on top of them can't move.
Alien civilizations lurk in shadows cast by piece stacks. As stacks grow taller, shadows deepen and hostile aliens emerge. They move randomly around the board each turn, but only appear in spaces that are in shadow. When an alien appears in a tile fully covered by shadow, it strikes — capturing a random adjacent piece. If this captures a King, the opposite side wins.
No check. Checkmate occurs when ANY King is captured.
If a player has no legal moves on their turn, their opponent wins.
Tap a piece to select it. Swipe/drag on it to tilt in that direction. Long-press a piece to enter Move mode, then tap a highlighted square.
Drag/pinch anywhere else to orbit and zoom the board.
CPU opponent and time controls can be configured from the start screen. Hit ↺ to reset the board, or finish a game and choose NEW GAME to return to settings.