The classic game of jumps and kings, playable against the computer or with a friend on the same screen. Black moves first, and jumps are not optional.
These are the standard American checkers rules (also called English draughts), the version played in the United States. The game above enforces them for you: illegal moves simply will not light up.
Each player starts with 12 pieces on the dark squares of the three rows nearest them, and Black always moves first. On this board your color starts along the bottom edge.
A regular piece, called a man, moves one square diagonally forward into an empty dark square. It can never move backward, sideways, or straight ahead.
If an enemy piece sits diagonally next to yours with an empty square just beyond it, you must jump over it and capture it. When a jump is available, ordinary moves are not allowed, and if several jumps are open you may choose which one to take. In Flying king mode only, majority capture also applies: you must take a capture sequence that captures the most pieces. A sequence that captures fewer pieces while a bigger capture exists is not a legal move, and the board highlights, the computer, and Get advice all follow this.
After a jump, if the same piece can jump again, it has to keep going. A double or triple jump takes several pieces in a single turn, and the direction can change between jumps.
A man that reaches the far row is crowned a king and gains the right to move and jump backward as well as forward. If a man is crowned in the middle of a jump, the turn ends there; it cannot jump backward until its next turn. The King moves setting chooses how kings travel: American (the default) moves a king one square diagonally, while a flying king slides any number of squares diagonally, like a bishop, and can capture an enemy piece from a distance as long as the square beyond it is empty.
You win by capturing all twelve of your opponent's pieces, or by leaving them with no legal move at the start of their turn. A blocked opponent loses, even with pieces still on the board.
Either player can offer a draw with the Offer draw button; in two-player mode the other player accepts or declines, and against the computer it accepts when it is not clearly ahead. The game is also drawn automatically if the same position occurs three times, if 40 moves by each side pass without a capture, or when only one king against one king remains, which neither side can force a win from. Flying king mode adds a king endgame rule, which applies only when no men remain on the board: if both sides have the same number of kings, then 25 consecutive moves made by kings only, with no man moving and no capture, end the game as a draw. If one side has more kings than the other, for example 3 kings against 1 or 2 kings against 1, the stronger side is not held to that 25-move draw; instead it gets 16 of its own moves to capture and win, and only if it has not won in those 16 moves is the game drawn. Every draw is shown as Result: Draw with the reason.
Tap or click one of your pieces and its legal moves light up: a green dot for a step, a green ring for a jump. Tap the highlighted square to play it. During a multi-jump the same piece stays selected, so keep tapping its next landing square. Squares are labeled with chess style coordinates (a1 to h8), and every move is recorded in the Moves list.