Puzzle Arcade

Short tactical runs. Spark starts at two minutes and every solve buys more; The Ten gives you ten puzzles at your level and scores the time you take; Three Matches has no clock, gets harder with every solve and ends when the third of your matches burns. Each puzzle loads whole, so a run never waits on the network between moves.

  • Spark
  • The Ten
  • Three Matches
  • No account needed

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Puzzle runs

The arcade is the fast end of WoodChess. A run hands you one tactical position at a time and scores what you manage before it ends, so the measure is not whether you can find the move but how far you get. Everything else about the puzzles is unchanged: they come from the same corpus of tactical positions.

Spark

Two minutes to start. Every puzzle you solve adds time back, and a puzzle above your level adds more. A miss takes time away and moves you on. The run ends when the clock does, and the score is simply how many positions you solved before it ran out.

The Ten

Ten puzzles at one level with the clock counting up instead of down. A miss costs twenty penalty seconds rather than the run, so The Ten always finishes and always gives you one number to beat next time. It is the gentlest of the three and the better place to start.

Three Matches

No clock at all. You have three matches, a miss burns one, and the third miss ends the run. Nothing gives a match back, and every puzzle you solve makes the next one harder, so the score is simply how many positions you solved before the climb caught up with you.

How difficulty is chosen

Each mode sets difficulty by a fixed curve rather than by guessing your level. Spark and Three Matches open with easy positions and climb a step for every puzzle you solve, so two runs of the same length face the same puzzles; The Ten holds one level for all ten. Nothing you do in a run affects your puzzle rating.

No account needed

Runs are open to everyone, signed in or not. Each finished run leaves a record of the positions you saw, with a link to replay any of them on the board at your own pace.

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