Mini Chess

The pitch

Mini Chess brings 25 chess variants to boards from 4×4 to 6×6 — classics like Gardner, Los Alamos and Petty Chess alongside original layouts. Every game is a sharp, tactical duel that fits in a few minutes: beat the AI to unlock the next board, earn a star for each difficulty you clear, and climb the leaderboard by collecting the most stars. Each board comes with a short note on its history, and an in-game rules card tells you exactly what applies. Four difficulty levels, undo, Korean and English.

Controls & how it runs

You play White and always move first. Tap a piece to see its legal moves, then tap a highlighted square to move. Capture the enemy king or checkmate it to win. Each board has its own layout — check the Rules button to see whether pawns may double-step and what counts as a draw. Pawns promote when they reach the last rank; there is no castling or en passant. Win once on a board to unlock the next one in its group, and clear a higher difficulty on the same board to earn more stars. Use Undo to take back your last move; when you run out, watch a short ad for one more.

Getting a run going takes exactly one press: Press start, up top, and the game boots inside this page — nothing downloads in the background and no form wants your details before the first jump. The cabinet is drawn for a portrait (upright) screen and listens to mouse, keyboard or touch, whichever the game prefers. This cabinet stands tall: it was built for portrait screens, so a phone held upright gives it the frame it wants — though it will squeeze politely into any window. Given a fullscreen button, use it — scores look better at full size, that's just science.

Pro tips for arcade cabinets

• Treat your first run as a scouting mission. Arcade cabinets hide their cruelty in the second minute, not the first — learn where the difficulty spikes before you start chasing numbers.
• Small scores compound. Grab the easy pickups on every pass instead of gambling the whole run on one heroic line; heroes respawn, banked points don't evaporate.
• Watch the edges of the screen. In classic arcade design the next problem almost always enters from somewhere you weren't looking — build the habit of scanning the borders.

Mini Chess — quick-fire questions

Does Mini Chess cost anything to play?

Not a token. The cabinet is free from the first run to the five-hundredth — no wallet, no sign-up, no toll booth hiding three levels in. The adverts around the page are what keep the floor's lights on.

What sort of game is Mini Chess?

It stands on our Arcade row — that's the family it plays most like. The pitch above is the publisher's own rundown of what it throws at you and what it hands back.

Can I play Mini Chess on my phone?

Happily, yes. It runs inside the browser on phones and tablets the same way it does on a computer. This cabinet stands tall: it was built for portrait screens, so a phone held upright gives it the frame it wants — though it will squeeze politely into any window.

Do I need to install anything first?

Nothing whatsoever. Mini Chess is an HTML5 game: hit the start button and it boots on this page, and shutting the tab sweeps the cabinet clean behind you.

Before you wander off

Personal best banked, or still chasing it? Either way the full Arcade row is powered on and waiting — The main floor: 415 cabinets of pure arcade stock — the quick, the loud and the gloriously unfair. If it beeps, flashes and dares you to beat a number, it lives on this row.