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Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board (playlaser.xyz)

218 points by xgboop ↗ HN
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!

68 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] thread
duck
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?

hp6
Would be nice to have the board algebraic notation visible.
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Fitzero
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?
boudin
From a quick test play, destroying with a laser seems to be a move itself, so takes a turn.
_trampeltier
I tryed a couple of times, but I can't laser anything.
boudin
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.
stavros
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.
elihu
If the "potential destination" indicator dot is under a piece it might be there but not visible.
stavros
Ahh it might have been under the king then, thanks!
[dead] elxr
[dead]
Jeff_Brown
+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?

BrianB
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
NackerHughes
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.
gabereiser
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.
doodpants
Is that what that was? I thought my mouse wheel was being wonky.
boboante
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!

isaacg
Same here - the games just randomly end, sometimes my clock gets set to 0 out of nowhere, sometimes the opponent's. Fun game though!
sh4rks
Yep, unfortunately I haven't been able to use the laser yet because of this bug
stilley2
Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khet_(game)
freilanzer
> 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.

hotpotamus
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.
[dead] elxr
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CGamesPlay
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.

cpfohl
This sounds like fun! How balanced does it wind up being?
CGamesPlay
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.
CGamesPlay
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.
sam_goody
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?
markild
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.

ndr
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

szajbus
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.

distcs
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!

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

joelthelion
It's really cool, I love it!

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

kthejoker2
The team at PyChess.org would probably be happy for you to host your variant there.

They are a lichess fork focused on variants.

rco8786
Is the queen broken or am I misunderstanding? I can't get it to "destroy" anything.
column
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.
rco8786
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”)
toolz
Maybe even worse, I assumed the lazer was always active and only required moving blockers.
bloomaan
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
squirtlebonflow
All you need is a chess board
bloomaan
If I use a chess board it'll be easier for my boss to see I'm not working
jeanlucas
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.
willmiller_
Really fun. Clock can be fixed and small issues here and there but fun game.
xgboop
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!
joelthelion
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.

xgboop
Thanks! That's a good idea, I just made a discord server. Here it is for anyone interested: https://discord.gg/sB8sPMxTnV
distcs
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.
opan
Really? There wasn't already a Discord and you thought that was a problem? Why not Matrix, XMPP, or IRC? Sigh.
Karawebnetwork
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.
dagurp
This. It's also hard to forget how those pieces move in regular chess.
SV_BubbleTime
This can be played on a real chess board with existing pieces which is clearly a feature.