motif

Tap one of your pieces, then a dotted destination. You play the side named below the board; the defender replies automatically. These are short tactical positions, not full matches. Standard chess rules apply, including check, castling, en passant and choosing a promotion.

The move limit counts your moves only. A ◆ and dashed border mark the specific capture target. Each mission is forced against every legal defence: “Capture” means take that piece, and “Win” additionally promises a verified net material gain after the defender’s best reply and recaptures.

Every move that still forces the mission is accepted; a legal move that throws it away stays unplayed. Undo takes back a whole player/defender turn, as often as you like. Reset restarts this puzzle. Hints reveal an idea, then a piece, then a move.

Keyboard: Tab to the board, arrow keys to explore, Enter or Space to select and move, Escape to deselect. U undoes and R resets when the board has focus. Progress saves on this device when storage is available, and everything plays offline.

Positions come from the Lichess open database puzzle export, dedicated under CC0 1.0 Universal (legal text). Individual authors are not supplied and no endorsement is implied. Each puzzle applies the source’s setup move; missions, hints, titles and explanations are written for Motif. The source identifiers and game links are listed below.

Rules use chess.js 0.10.3 by Jeff Hlywa, under the BSD 2-Clause license. The bundled copy exposes legal-move hooks so the page can verify positions locally; no remote engine or network request is used.

Copyright (c) 2020, Jeff Hlywa (jhlywa@gmail.com)
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