Capture

Capture is a Windows desktop chess puzzle game inspired by the clean daily-puzzle feel of NYT games. Every move must capture another piece. The board is cleared when only the king remains, and the king must make the final capture.

Chosen Build

This project uses Phaser + TypeScript + Vite + Electron.

Why this option fits:

• Phaser is strong for tactile 2D board interaction, animation, and pointer feedback.
• Electron turns the web game into a Windows .exe and NSIS installer.
• The level system is deterministic, so the game ships with large banks without huge static level files.
• Future updates can add modes, boards, themes, or yearly level banks without changing the installer approach.

Other viable options:

• Godot: excellent for a native-feeling game and visual tooling. It is heavier than needed for this puzzle game but a good future option if animation/audio becomes central.
• Unity: powerful and familiar, but oversized for a compact chess puzzle and slower to iterate for simple UI-heavy updates.
• C#/.NET desktop: lean Windows executable, but less natural for animated board-game presentation.
• Browser-only PWA: easiest to share, but does not satisfy the preferred installer requirement.

Modes And Content

• Daily: one board selected from the level banks for the current day.
• Challenges: level select with 300 Standard and 300 Advanced replayable boards.
• Random: a quick board pulled from the banks.
• Standard Challenges: 300 progressive levels with readable capture chains.
• Advanced Challenges: 300 progressive levels with denser boards, more blockers, and longer chains.
• Challenge levels are always replayable. Completed levels use a different tile color.
• Each profile has separate progress, stats, and achievements.

Rules

• Select any piece to see its legal captures.
• Every move must capture another piece.
• Empty-square movement is not allowed.
• All pieces are the same color and can capture each other.
• Pieces move like normal chess pieces.
• Pawns capture one square diagonally upward, like white pawns.
• Each piece can capture at most twice.
• A non-king piece is removed after its second capture.
• If the king makes a second capture before the board is cleared, the level is lost.
• The king must make the final capture and be the only piece left.

Player Features

• Named local profiles.
• Separate profile select, mode select, challenge level select, and game screens.
• Mode select includes total challenge progress, a progress bar, and achievements.
• Undo, restart, hint, and solution reveal.
• Local save data for profile progress and achievements.
• Achievement unlock toasts.
• Tactile buttons, hover states, selected-piece highlights, capture target rings, and board feedback pulses.

Roadmap

• Roadmap Beyond v2: shippable chunks for polish, accessibility, mastery, distribution, mechanics expansion, and creator/social features.

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run the desktop game in development:

npm run dev

Run tests:

npm test

Build the web bundle:

npm run build

Build the Windows installer and portable executable:

npm run dist

Build only the Windows installer:

npm run dist:installer

Build only the portable executable:

npm run dist:portable

Electron Builder writes raw packaged files to:

release/

The release organizer also copies the shippable artifacts to:

releases/vX.Y.Z/windows/

That folder contains the NSIS installer, portable executable, unpacked app for smoke testing, metadata, a manifest, and SHA256 hashes.

The local build is unsigned. Windows may show a SmartScreen warning until the app is signed with a trusted code-signing certificate.

Project Structure

electron/              Electron desktop shell
src/game/rules.ts      Chess movement, capture rules, win/loss states, hint solver
src/game/levels.ts     Standard and Advanced level banks
src/game/storage.ts    Local profiles, saves, and stats
src/game/achievements.ts
src/game/CaptureScene.ts
src/game/AppController.ts
src/styles.css