Show HN: Schmess – chess with no turns; pieces freeze on cooldown after moving

2 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by navalsaini

4 Comments

vunderba

3 hours ago

Nice job. There was actually an attempt to build a physical, real-time chess prototype back in 2015 that you might also find interesting, called Dengekisen: Speed Chess.

In that version, each piece had its own small cooldown timer that had to expire before you were allowed to move it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QikOIRs3MTo

evanjrowley

9 hours ago

I wonder if adding a "dark souls" mode, where each move is delayed by a wind-up (or perhaps slow movement?), might result in more strategic gameplay approaches.

navalsaini

6 hours ago

Agreed-adding a wind-up delay would make gameplay significantly more strategic.

From an engine and state-space perspective, a "Dark Souls mode" creates a massive challenge.

Explosive Search Tree: Because moves overlap in time, evaluating positions via traditional brute-force depth/breadth search becomes nearly impossible. The state space expands exponentially (or infinitely, without cooldowns).

Strategy over Calculation: Because an AI or player can't brute-force every micro-timeline, win conditions rely far more on high-level positional control and timing anticipation rather than raw calculation.

Endgame Dynamics: Cooldown management would dominate the endgame. It could either make drawing much easier or completely alter fundamental checkmate patterns (like King + Rook vs. King).

Great concept to think through!

navalsaini

6 hours ago

Correction - plays in the app (no signup)