Dama: Turkish Draughts

Dama brings Turkish draughts, a classic of coffeehouses and parks, to your screen: play the computer or a friend on the same device. Pieces move straight, not diagonally; capturing is compulsory, you must take the route that captures the most, and every captured piece leaves the board at once. There are three ways to play: Quick Game, where you choose the level and your colour, the Daily Puzzle, the same position for everyone each day, and Two Players. When you are stuck, the What would the master play? hint is there, and Undo fixes a slip.

Your goal is to capture all of your opponent's pieces or leave them with no legal move. Each player has 16 pieces on an 8×8 board; they start on the 2nd and 3rd rows, and White moves first.

• A piece moves one square forward or sideways; never backward or diagonally.
• It captures by jumping over an enemy piece in front of it or beside it and landing on the empty square right behind. It never captures backward, and two pieces standing one behind the other cannot be captured.
• Capturing is compulsory. If there are several routes, you must take the one that captures the most pieces; a king and a piece both count as one.
• In a chain capture each captured piece is removed immediately, so the chain can continue through the squares that open up.
• A piece that reaches your opponent's last row becomes a king (in Turkish, the dama). A king moves any distance in a straight line in all four directions and captures from afar, but in a chain it cannot turn back the way it came.

The game enforces the rules for you, so you can never make an illegal move.

Tap your piece, then tap a highlighted square, or simply drag the piece with your finger or mouse. When a capture is compulsory, the pieces that must capture glow, so you see at once which one to play. In a chain capture the stops and the pieces to be taken are marked on the board; if there are several stops, tap the next one to continue the chain.

In the game settings you can choose the Piece speed (Normal, Fast) and switch the Square names (a-h, 1-8) along the edge of the board on or off. When you play Black, the board turns so your own pieces are always at the bottom.

In Quick Game you play the computer. The level is Easy, Medium or Hard; your colour is White, Black or Random. Easy looks only a little ahead and sometimes slips, Medium is more careful, and Hard calculates as deeply as it can in the time it is given for each move. During a game you can use Offer a draw or Resign from the menu. The computer accepts a draw when its own position is not good; you cannot offer one in the first moves of a game.

In Two Players you put the phone or computer between you and take turns; the screen shows whose move it is. No points are scored in this mode. The Coffeehouse Tournament, still locked in the menu, is coming soon.

Every day everyone gets the same position; the day changes on Turkish time. You play White and the computer defends as well as possible. From Monday to Wednesday you must win in 2 moves, from Thursday to Sunday in 3 moves: capture every piece or leave your opponent with no move. Each puzzle has been checked in advance by a solver to make sure the win can be forced.

You have three attempts; after a wrong move the position resets. Solve it on the first attempt and +15 is added to your Dama score. Solving on consecutive days builds your streak. If all three attempts fail, you can see the first move of the solution. You can share your result as a picture card; the card does not show the position, so it never gives the answer away.

Your Quick Game results are added to your Dama score. When you win, you also earn points for every piece of yours left on the board, so winning without losing pieces is worth much more.

If you used Undo in a game, the points for a win or a draw are halved, and the result screen says so. After a loss, the option Rematch: double points if you win appears: if you choose to watch a short rewarded ad, your points are doubled when you win the rematch.

The What would the master play? button shows a strong move in the current position with a gold arrow; you don't have to play it. You get 3 per game: the first one has no ad, the others open with a short rewarded ad, only if you choose to. Undo takes back your last move together with the computer's reply.

A game ends in a draw if the same position appears three times, if only one king against one king is left, or if a draw offer is accepted. One rule is specific to our game: if both sides make 25 moves each without any capture and without any piece moving forward, the game is a draw. This limit stops kings, or pieces shuffling sideways, from dragging a game on forever.