Checkers guide: how to play, rules and tips

1. Pick a level on the start screen: Easy, Medium, Hard or Expert.
2. Choose your pieces. Dark goes first. Pick Light if you'd rather let the bot open.
3. Tap Play. Your pieces always sit at the bottom of the board.
4. On your turn, tap a piece with a ring, then a lime dot.
5. If a jump is open, you must take it. For a double or triple jump, tap each landing square in turn until the move is done.
6. Reach the far row and your piece is crowned a king.
7. The bot thinks for a moment, then replies.
8. The result card shows the pieces each side took and your record. Play again, change level or head home.

• Only the dark squares are used. Each side starts with 12 pieces.
• Plain pieces move one step diagonally forward, onto an empty square.
• Captures are forced. If any of your pieces can jump, you must jump. Only the pieces that can jump get a ring.
• Keep jumping if you can. A multi-jump must be finished. If you have more than one way to capture, you choose which, and you don't have to pick the longest.
• Crowning ends the move. A piece that reaches the far row is crowned there and stops, even if it could keep jumping as a king.
• Kings move one step diagonally, forwards or backwards, and jump both ways. They don't fly across the board.
• How you win: take every bot piece, or leave the bot with no legal move. A blocked side loses too.
• Draws: the same position comes up three times, or 40 moves each go by with no capture and no plain piece moving.

• Look before you leap. Check what the bot could jump next turn. Because captures are forced, one careless step can hand over two pieces.
• Use forced captures as a weapon. The bot must jump too. Sometimes giving one piece away pulls a bot piece into place for your double jump.
• Hold your back row. Keeping your home row filled as long as you can stops the bot from getting kings.
• Hug the edges. A piece on a side edge can't be jumped, so the edges make a safe wall.
• Build in threes. Two pieces side by side, backed up by a third, are hard to break.
• Trade when you're ahead. Fewer pieces make your lead count more. Keep kings in the middle, not on the edge.

Checkers is you against the bot, with four levels:

• Easy: a gentle start. The bot eases off when it's ahead and tries harder when it's behind, so games stay close.
• Medium: a real opponent that still slips now and then.
• Hard: looks further ahead and slips far less.
• Expert: searches deep for about half a second a move. The real test.

Undo is there on Easy and Medium only: it takes back your move and the bot's reply. The start screen shows your record on each level (wins, losses and draws), and an unfinished game is picked up where you left it on the same device.