How to play

The rules of the daily board: a 6×6 sudoku with seven mines under it, opened with rooks, bishops, knights and kings.

The goal

  1. Seven mines under this sudoku. Defuse all seven and the board is ours!
  2. One way: flag the mine, then run a rook or bishop through the flag.
  3. Or I raise my own flag and jump onto it!
  4. Or probe it: hold the cell until the fuse burns round.
  5. And if I just step on one?
  6. It blows up and takes one of our three lives. A mine that blew up counts as done, though.

Every boom takes one of your three lives. Lose all three, or have no piece left to play or move, and the board is lost. Probes don't count as moves.

You never have to guess. The board is built to be solved by logic from the cells that start open.

Controls

ToMouseTouch
Place or move a pieceDrag it, or click it, then the cellDrag it, or tap it, then the cell
Flag a cellRight-click itDouble-tap it
Flag a knightRight-click himLong-press him
Probe a cellHold the left button on itHold your finger on it
DiscardDrag it onto the newspaperThe same
MergeDrag one hand piece onto anotherThe same
See a zonePoint at a piece or a numberTap a piece, or hold a number
Pause or give upClick the glass of teaTap the glass of tea

Playing a piece onto your own flag asks "Onto your flag?" first. Press Play it, or Stay to take the piece back.

In the train car the three lamps are your lives, the enamel plate counts the mines left, the chess box is the deck and the newspaper takes discards.

The numbers

  1. A sudoku with mines in it. So the mines are all the fours, obviously!
  2. No, the mines are their own layer. A 2 in a round token means two mines in the eight cells around it.
  3. The number on a block's frame counts the mines in that block. Cells that start open never hold one.
  4. That white king says 3. Three mines on the board!
  5. Around him. A white piece counts the mines in its zone, a black one the closed cells that hide its digit.
  6. A rook or bishop looks along its lines, up to the first open cell or piece. A flag doesn't stop it.

Counts update after every action. A king's zone is the eight cells around him, a knight's the eight cells an L-jump away.

An empty dashed ring on a starting cell means it shows no count. It isn't a zero.

Placing a piece

  1. A piece on a closed cell says the cell holds its digit. Right digit: the cell opens, the piece stays.
  2. Wrong digit: the piece sits out for the rest of the board, and that digit goes grey on the cell.
  3. And on a mine I just bring the right digit, yes?
  4. A mine blows up whatever you carry. One life gone, and so is the piece.
  5. A rook or bishop merges with the cell he lands on: a 3 on a 3 makes 6. Kings and knights keep theirs.

Your hand holds five pieces and refills from the deck after every piece you play.

Moving on the board

  1. Land, then move again, and again. I could hop around all day!
  2. One stamina a move. You have three, the others two.
  3. A rook or bishop opens its whole path. A mine under your flag is defused, one without a flag blows up.
  4. And a flag with nothing under it?
  5. The piece stops there on a question mark and sits out. That's 10 points off.
  6. A rook can also glide along open cells for free. It opens nothing, it only lines up what he counts.

A board move follows chess rules onto a closed cell and doesn't check the digit. Placing from the hand costs no stamina.

A king's step or a knight's jump has no path, so your flag doesn't help: a mine there blows up.

A knight under his own flag defuses the mine he lands on and keeps jumping while he hits. On an empty cell he leaves a question mark, loses 10 points and sits out.

The probe

  1. I probed a cell and there was nothing in it.
  2. Then it's a question mark for good and 10 points off. A mine would have paid 10.
  3. Not this time. The king took it for us!
  4. A king has one spare life a board. An empty probe in the 3×3 around him spends it instead.
  5. And the second time?
  6. He leaves the board, and you get the question mark and lose the 10 anyway.

Your hand

  1. My hand's full of digits that fit nowhere. There, I threw one away.
  2. Discards are free, and a new piece comes in. But the deck holds 18 pieces, and that's all.
  3. Or feed it to another piece in your hand. Their digits add up, round the circle.
  4. So a 6 fed to a 3 makes 9!
  5. On a 6×6 it makes 4. The 6 counts as 1, and the piece you fed is discarded.

The daily

One board a day, the same for everyone. A new one comes at midnight, UTC.

You get one try. Give up in the pause and the day counts as lost.

Every move is saved in this browser. Close the tab and you come back to the same board.

The score is in whole points, just for fun. Opened digits earn points, more when the same move defuses mines. A probe on a mine earns 10, a question mark costs 10, and a blown-up piece costs 30 for a knight or bishop, 40 for a king and 50 for a rook. The score can go below zero.

The result card keeps your streak (daily wins in a row) and your best score. Copy puts a grid on the clipboard to share:

  • ★ 380 a won board and its score
  • ✗ a lost board
  • 🟩 a cell left closed
  • ⬜ an opened cell
  • 🚩 a defused mine
  • 💥 a boom

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