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Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board (playlaser.xyz)
218 points by xgboop on July 11, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 65 comments
Laser is a turn based game similar to chess, with different piece movement rules, starting position, and win conditions. It's named after the laser piece, which can shoot diagonally through every piece on the board except for the wall, which blocks it. The detailed rules are on the website.

I made the website as a super minimal way to play online against friends. Nobody really knows about it so it might be hard to find a game, but maybe you will against someone on HN if people read this. It uses the lichess.org chessboard UI which is super pretty and allows you to draw on the board, make premoves, etc. The code is public if you are interested: github.com/melgrove/laser

If you are playing, good luck, and don't get lasered!




The appearing and disappearing ‘lobby’ entries above the analysis board cause the rest of the page to jump up and down at random. It makes the rules and all following content borderline unreadable.


It also makes the hit boxes for the chess board below move. When you click on a board piece. Those appearing and disappearing lobby messages offsets the click hit boxes by 1 sometimes 2 squares. Really bad.


Is that what that was? I thought my mouse wheel was being wonky.


Hey everyone, this has gained way more attention than I thought it would, 250 people playing right now, wow! 1. Thanks to everyone finding bugs, I just fixed what I think was causing people to have clocks go to zero and games end unexpectedly. If I'm correct, this only should have happened during games when the previous game was won or lost due to the win conditions instead of running out of time. Let me know if you are still experiencing these or other issues. 2. Thanks for all the recommendations about making the rules more clear about how the laser works, will update!


The game is perfectly playable as it is, and a lot of fun! Well done.

You might want to create some discord or similar to make sure the community outlives the short-lived HN celebrity.


Thanks! That's a good idea, I just made a discord server. Here it is for anyone interested: https://discord.gg/sB8sPMxTnV


I second the other sibling comment that recommends IRC, Matrix, XMPP. Discord is a walled garden and many people who want to avoid walled gardens are never going to sign up on Discord. But something based on open protocol like the sibling recommendation is more likely to see more users.


Really? There wasn't already a Discord and you thought that was a problem? Why not Matrix, XMPP, or IRC? Sigh.


Neat! I built a similar chess variant based on Chess 2 by Dave Sirlin[0]. You can play that one online here: https://www.chess2online.com

The nice part about Chess 2 is that the different armies are playable in any combination, which adds lots of variety to the game (although there are some balance issues which are addressed through the official tournament rules).

[0] Apparently Sirlin didn't really like the rule set he published so he fundamentally changed the rules a while back but kept calling it Chess 2, unfortunately.


This sounds like fun! How balanced does it wind up being?


If you play a few games of Reaper vs Empowered you’ll see that it’s very difficult for Reaper to win. Similarly, Realer is very strong against Nemesis. The tournament rules specify that the winner of a game can’t change their army, but the loser of the previous game has free choice.


Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khet_(game)


> In 2017 a company called "Thinkfun" acquired the license for the now out of print Khet 2.0 and rebranded the game "Laser Chess". Now with a new, modernized scifi look, it brings the exact same rules and feel of Khet 2.0 back to the table.

Hm.


I guess there is something about chessboard and lasers.

“Laser Chess” was also the name of a 1987 video game: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Chess

Gameplay video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PywxkhY3kGs


Came here to post the same thing ;)


I was thinking the same thing - I've had a board for many years now. It was a pretty fun novelty back then, but I haven't touched it in a long time.


Have you considered adding a choice of a second skin for the game where the pieces have different looking sci-fi shapes? Chess pieces can be confortable to some but could also put off people who are not interested or intimidated by chess.


This. It's also hard to forget how those pieces move in regular chess.


This can be played on a real chess board with existing pieces which is clearly a feature.


I like this a lot, but the page seems to have some sort of bug for me. So far:

- Sometimes I can make infinite consecutive moves - Sometimes the game displays the "<opponent> wins" message when they haven't satisfied any of the win conditions and I haven't resigned. - Sometimes I enter a game and immediately win (though this might just be the opponent insta-resigning?)

Would love to come back and play more when it's working better!


Same here - the games just randomly end, sometimes my clock gets set to 0 out of nowhere, sometimes the opponent's. Fun game though!


Yep, unfortunately I haven't been able to use the laser yet because of this bug


Laser Chess, 1987 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Chess>


Came to say this. Enjoyed that game years ago.


This game is very good, congrats!

I would like to play more, but the games seem to be unreliable - the moves from my opponents stop getting through at some point, typically after a few moves.


Cool game, I just wish the rules were bit more detailed, like when does the laser destroy pieces, all after the move, or one every turn?


From a quick test play, destroying with a laser seems to be a move itself, so takes a turn.


I tryed a couple of times, but I can't laser anything.


It works by having the Laser positioned the turn before, on the turn you want to laser something click on the laser, and drag it to the dot on the edge of the board on the diagonal you want to laser.


I've had it happen where it was just disabled, I would have won because I could laser the king but it just didn't show me the dots.


If the "potential destination" indicator dot is under a piece it might be there but not visible.


Ahh it might have been under the king then, thanks!


+1.

Can the laser shoot across either diagonal?

Pawns only move to adjacent squares, like in chess?

If the laser can move horizontally and vertically, then why not just say it can move like a rook in chess, the way two other pieces are described?


The team at PyChess.org would probably be happy for you to host your variant there.

They are a lichess fork focused on variants.


I made a crappy bot for your game. It runs game tree search (no pruning) for 4 plies and picks the position with the most material advantage. It seems to beat me more effectively than most human opponents so far, though. What it lacks in long-term planning it makes up for in taking advantage of tactical errors.

It's currently running in a loop under the name "LASERFISH SHITTY CPU OPPONENT". It never joins your games - you have to click on it.

I also thought about making a puzzle opponent that would give you unusual FEN starting positions and nearly unlimited time, but I don't want to invent puzzles.

Does the game not send a gameOver packet when you win or lose by pawn move?

edit: I figured out why it can't find any moves and crashes. It can't find any of YOUR moves if it backs you into a corner and takes every single piece. With the crash fixed, it seems to be winning 2/3 of the time and drawing 1/3 (probably some stupid logic where it thinks lasering your king and their king and one pawn is a good tradeoff)


Hey, your bot is amazing! Thanks so much for making it. I made some changes to the api which should make things simpler for you but doesn't seem to fix that the bot doesn't record losses on winning move. Would love to chat on the discord if you are interested!


Since the initial setup has a losing move (lasering your own king), it would be nice if a suicidal (not draw) move was prevented by the UI. The games are quick, but there should be some kind of other draw condition. For example, if there are only 2 kings on the table, it's a boring stalemate unless a player makes a losing move.


Propose a draw?


Would love to hear more about how you came up with this game!

Have you thought about making it so you can play against the computer?


As fun as the game seems to be, there are bugs that makes it impossible to play.

Clock randomly jumps to zero. I can sometimes make infinite moves. Using laser is a bit unintuitive.


Cool micro chess variant! UX needs some work, the lobbies push the content of the game board up & down, and it isn't clear how to choose whether to move or shoot a board edge (lost a game as a result of lasering an adjacent square I wanted to move to).

I think the chess board should really be at the top of the screen & lobbies & then rules below, and lobbies should be collapsible to prevent screen shifting.


One thing that was counterintuitive to me playing on the analysis board: if the opposing king is exposed to the laser, then you need to _fire_ the laser in order to trigger the game over -- click the laser (queen) piece, and then click the opposing corner.

Whereas once you move a pawn into the target corner the game over just happens.


Just curious, when not use Bishops instead of pawns for the pieces that move diagonally, and a pawn instead of the king, since the king has no special importance?


The king is special in that you lose if captured.

You also need four of the diagonal pieces, so the bishops won't cut it.


Would be nice to have the board algebraic notation visible.


Interesting game. But there are some annoying bugs due to which I can't play it much. Sometimes my clock randomly resets to 0. Sometimes the game ends randomly and makes one person winner when they have not satisfied the winning conditions.

It gets frustrating when this happens near the end of game when I am just about to win but the game randomly decides to reset my clock or stop the game and make the other person winner!


This is fun. It would be great if there were a ladder system so I can avoid all the dodgers and html injection testers and play real games


Is the queen broken or am I misunderstanding? I can't get it to "destroy" anything.


it's not broken but it's not intuitive. horizontal/vertical to move, but if you drag your queen to one of the point that is on a diagonal, it will destroy pawns and kings that are on the way but not pieces. A rook or a knight stops the laser. You can laser your own king right from the start and lose on move 1.


Ah I see. I feel like that’s poorly explained. I was imagining that I move the queen, and then anything on the diagonals from the new position would be destroyed (via the “laser”)


Maybe even worse, I assumed the lazer was always active and only required moving blockers.


Having a lot of fun playing e4 Rh3 Rh7, then lasering the opponents king if they recapture


The game is fun!

I think I've walked into a bug.

https://imgur.com/a/WX04SD4

(Assuming black starts with a1 at bottom left):

1. Kc5 d6; 2. e3 <= was my next move but my pawn teleported to f5


Holy hell?


Would be nice to just be able to "play against myself" on the home page or something. Would be a useful tool to get to grips with the rules and play with the concept


All you need is a chess board


If I use a chess board it'll be easier for my boss to see I'm not working


Cool idea but please use custom icons for the Queen and Rook. Otherwise, it's massively confusing.


It's really cool, I love it!

If it sticks, maybe it could even be adopted as a variant in Lichess?


Really fun. Clock can be fixed and small issues here and there but fun game.


I love it, but needs matchmaking, too much trolls.


Tried two games... The laser did not work if there was any (enemy) piece on the diagonal... So I could destroy any pieces with the laser.


Are you sure the rook wasn’t blocking your line of attack?


No, it wasn't.


I don't find this v fun

cool tho i guess




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