Fell the enemy king. Both sides first set up their army anywhere in their own half — build your fortress in response to theirs — then battle. Any piece that falls is removed. Mutual destruction is a draw.

Each king has a life bar (100%), shown at his feet. A hit hard enough to topple a normal piece chips his life — the harder the blow, the bigger the bite (a glancing topple takes a sliver, a monstrous hit a big chunk; roughly three solid hits fell him). At 0% he falls and the game ends. And striking at royalty is death: an enemy piece that damages the king is executed on the spot; the king's own pieces ricocheting into him are spared. Pawn walls are bodyguards — breach theirs, maintain yours. King takes king: if a king strikes a king, the one with more life remaining wins — the weaker king falls. Equal life = both fall, a desperate mutual trade. A king's surviving bodyguards count toward his life in that duel — bigger pieces and closer ones count for more, and men on the side the blow comes from count double those behind him, so a well-screened king outfights a bare one of the same health. And on your turn you may move your king anywhere in your own half instead of striking (it costs your turn). Watch for the ⚠ exposed-king warning — it means an enemy has a clear lane to your king.

Turns strictly alternate — 1 shot each, White first. On your shot: press one of your pieces and pull back like a slingshot to aim, then release to flick. Every shot strikes at full force — the pull sets direction only.

Every piece strikes with full force — but heavier pieces hit harder. Power is the impact a striker delivers (pawn = 10). Weight is how hard a piece is to push around. Stability is how hard it is to topple — wide, squat, heavy pieces stand firm; tall ones tip easier.

Note the rook: heavy and squat, it's the hardest piece to topple for its weight. The king hits hard and, at double weight, is much harder to shove — though a solid, well-aimed blow still moves him.

A sliding piece loses force to friction — impact is strongest at point-blank range and fades with every square travelled. The calibration promise: even a pawn fired from one corner still topples a king in the opposite corner on a clear board — but only just. The same hit from nearby is devastating. Pieces in between absorb the blow by weight: a heavy queen soaks up momentum a light pawn would pass along.

The piece you fire is removed once the board settles — win or miss — so it can never linger in enemy territory to be fired again from a lethal position. Every shot is a trade: you spend a piece to land the blow. The king is the exception — he is never sacrificed by firing him, but he may only attack once he is your last piece standing. Beware ricochets felling your own army on the way out.

As you pull back, a preview shows your first contact: who you'll hit, a gold arrow for where they'll fly, a stub for your striker's deflection, and ✕ marks a piece that will topple. Everything beyond the first impact — chains, double-topples — is your gamble.

One flick can fell two or three pieces at once. The trick is reading the preview's two lines: the gold arrow is where the struck piece flies, and the stub is where your own striker deflects and keeps travelling. A chain lands when either of those runs on into more pieces — so aim to knock the first target into the next, or drive your striker straight through a line of them. Look for enemies lined up or bunched together, then hit them heavy and close: a rook or queen fired point-blank keeps enough momentum to bowl through several pieces, while a lone pawn from across the board barely topples one. The board past the first impact is unscripted physics — but once you start following those two vectors a hop ahead, the oversized shots stop being luck.

Big pieces walled in by pawns? Don't strike the blocked piece — strike the blocking pawn at the enemy. The striker vacates its square, so every pawn shot both attacks and opens a lane for the heavy artillery behind it. Pawns are ammunition, not furniture.

Arrange your army within your half — the king stays fixed — then aim to fell the enemy king. You start from the standard formation with both knights pushed to the front corners, a reminder that chess placement rules don't apply here. Drag each piece to any empty square — one piece per square. Short on ideas or short on time? Press 🎲 Shuffle to drop into a ready-made formation — press it again to try the next one — then tweak from there. You have 60 seconds once the clock starts; White sets up first, then Black answers having seen it. Press ✓ Done placing when ready.

Chess piece artwork by Colin M. L. Burnett (Wikimedia Commons), used under the BSD 3-Clause licence. See PIECES-LICENSE.txt.