Daily Brains · solo capture chess with the pieces of Timur's Great Chess.
Mini Great Chess is Mini Chess played with the menagerie of Timur's Great Chess. A handful of pieces share a tiny board, all on your side, and every move must be a capture made with the capturing piece's Great Chess move: the camel's (1,3) leap, the giraffe's dog-leg, the elephant's two-square diagonal jump, the war engine's two-square straight jump, the picket that can't stop next door. Take until one piece is left. Three boards a day, each with exactly one way through, and one featured star piece a day so you learn the old pieces as you play.
STORY & LORE
Why Great Chess pieces
Timur's Great Chess (shatranj al-kabir, 14th-century Persia) has more kinds of piece than any common chess game, and most of them are short-range leapers whose reach is easy to misjudge. Solo capture puzzles are the friendliest way to learn them: there is no opponent, only geometry. The rules module is shared with Timurs Checkmate, the mate-in-N daily, so a camel moves the same in both games; the ruleset and where sources disagree are set out on that game's wiki.
The daily star
Each day features one piece, rotating through Camel, Giraffe, Elephant, War Engine, Picket, Vizier, General, Knight and Rook. The star is on all three boards, carries a small gilt star, and board I is built backwards from it, so (unless that board's king must survive) the star is the last piece standing. Tap the star banner to see the movement diagrams.
How the boards are made
Boards are built by reverse play, like Mini Chess: start from the survivor and un-capture (a piece steps back to a square it could have taken from, and its victim reappears). At every step the build checks that the board so far still has exactly one plan, where a plan is the set of 'this piece takes that piece' captures (two orders of independent captures are the same plan). Every board on every day has exactly one plan, from Monday's 4-piece warm-up to Sunday's 10-piece king-last board. On Monday to Wednesday the generator then picks, among valid boards, the one whose random-play clear rate is closest to that slot's target, so the week climbs steadily.
HOW IT PLAYS
Moving
Tap a piece, then a ringed piece it can take. Hold a piece on a phone (or hover it with a mouse) to light up every square it reaches, with its name in the bar under the board. Undo (U), Restart (R), Give up (tap twice; the answer is played out), Next (N). Arrow keys and Enter work too.
Twists
King last: the king may never be taken and must be the survivor. Two captures each: pips on every piece count down. Frozen: a frozen piece (pale, with a snowflake) never moves but can be taken.
Scoring
Each board is worth 300 points, minus 25 per undo (a restart counts every undone capture), never below 150 for a clear; giving up scores 0. The day is 900 at most. Three clean clears is a perfect day. The share line lists each board as cleared clean, cleared with undos, or not cleared, with no emoji.
THE PIECES
Movement diagrams drawn by the game itself. In this solo game every move is a capture.
Royal
Court
Court
Rider
Leaper
Rider
Rider
Leaper
Leaper
Leaper
PawnGALLERY
THE WEEK
| Day | Board | Pieces (I / II / III) | Twists | Random-play clear rate (avg I / II / III) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5×5 | 4 / 5 / 6 | none | 28% / 14% / 6% |
| Tuesday | 5×5 | 5 / 6 / 7 | III: two captures | 16% / 7% / 2.5% |
| Wednesday | 6×6 | 6 / 7 / 7 | II: two captures; III: king last | 8% / 3% / 2% |
| Thursday | 6×6 | 6 / 7 / 8 | I: king last; II: two captures; III: both | 11% / 2% / 0.5% |
| Friday | 6×6 | 7 / 7 / 8 | a frozen piece on every board; I: two captures; II: king last; III: both | 1.5% / 7% / 0.8% |
| Saturday | 6×6 | 7 / 8 / 9 | king last + two captures; II and III: a frozen piece | 2% / 0.5% / 0.2% |
| Sunday | 6×6 | 8 / 9 / 10 | king last + two captures; II: one frozen, III: two | 0.6% / 0.2% / 0.1% |
VERSION HISTORY
- First version: Mini Chess rules with the Timur's Great Chess piece set (camel, giraffe, elephant, war engine, picket, vizier, general, knight, rook, king, pawn), three boards a day, 5×5 Monday to 6×6 Sunday.
- Every board has exactly one plan (checked during generation and re-counted by scripts/test-mini-great-chess.mjs for all 800 banked days, with the weekday difficulty ramp).
- Daily star piece; hold/hover movement preview; piece guide; rules shared with Timurs Checkmate (public/gamedata/_shared/great-chess.js) and the hand-drawn Persian-miniature piece set.
- Tested at 390×844, 360×740 and desktop.