Detective Chess

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"A fascinating, challenging puzzle game" - ZDNet                           Requires: Win 3.1 or later

2nd January 2002 - Also now available as part of several value bundles.

Detective Chess is an original puzzle game based on the rules of Chess. The idea comes from some puzzles invented by Jaime Poniachik, and published in Martin Gardner's "Puzzles from other Worlds".

In this game, the computer places some Chess pieces in random positions on a chessboard, but does not show them as such. Instead their squares are marked, but you do not know which piece is which.

Your job is to deduce which piece is on which square. You are given clues (hence the name!) in the form of numbers on some squares. These numbers represent the number of pieces attacking each square - i.e. those which could move to it according to the normal rules of Chess. The computer always generates exactly enough clues to solve the position.

Try the following example - as you can see there are five different pieces in a "box" on the right, and if you were playing the PC version you would move them with the mouse to the correct squares.

(You might find it easier to draw a sketch of a chessboard and write in the pieces as you deduce them. In the game itself there is a facility to write notes on the board.)

Click here to see the solution.

The shareware version of Detective Chess will generate an infinite number of such positions. Certain other options are also available - for example you can cause every square to be numbered, and the five squares not marked, or change the board size.

For a small registration fee, further options can be activated - more pieces, non-standard pieces and others! But try the free version first - you can download it from here:

 Download Detective Chess V3.0  (281 Kb)