Finding Your Way Around

To play a game, first choose your opponent! Note that Local Opponent is highlighted, which means that the game will be played on this computer alone, against another human opponent. You will have to share the screen, by for example passing a laptop computer from one player to another.

The images here are as appear on a Mac. Tabs, buttons and menus will look slightly different on a Windows or Linux machine.

To play Kriegspiel, press the Kriegspiel button in the Game Controls panel (the program will hide the players positions before you pass the screen across).

White's pieces are in yellow, Black's pieces in mauve and the Messageboard will show messages from the referee.

Click on one of white's pieces (any pawn or kight), and all possible moves for the piece become illuminated. You can change your mind by clicking another piece.

Click on an illuminated empty square (directly ahead if it's a pawn), and the selected piece will move. Black to Play will become illuminated in the status panel, and Moves so far will show 0+ . The status panel counts both White and Black having moved as a single move, and shows a "half move" with a +

Press the Handover button in the Game Controls panel, and the pieces vanish, ready for you to pass the screen to your opponent.

Black can the press the Takeover button to reveal his own pieces. Suppose Black now makes a move, and hands over to White. The board might look as follows:

The status panel and Message board report that White has tries at e5. The square e5, diagonally ahead of the pawn, is illuminated to show a potential capture.

If White selects the pawn, two possible moves are illuminated.

Taking the pawn is accompanied by a satisfying sound effect, and the following display. The status panel shows that a Black Pawn has been taken at e5, and that Black now has 15 pieces remaining. Black will be able to see in the scrollable Message board that White had a pawn try on this square and may deduce that it was a white pawn which took his pawn. Sound effects can be turned on and off with the button to the right of the Opponents panel.

The Handover view shows blood on the carpet...as does the view which Black takes over.

When playing Kriegspiel the Piece menu tab provides an optional playing aid allowing you to mark the board with where you think the opponents pieces might be. Black has decided to use this, and has pressed the Piece menu tab.

Black selects a White Pawn, and places it on the red square for future reference. The image doesn't affect the game at all, it is just to help Black work out what might be going on.

To clear the pawn image, he can either select the empty square image on the left of the Piece menu and place that on square e5, or press the green empty square on the right which will clear all his white piece images.

An attempt to make an illegal move shows up in the status panel:

Something - e.g. another piece or a potential check is preventing that move, even though it is illuminated. You must try another move or move another piece.

Check and Checkmate

A move resulting in check might look like this:

The check direction is illuminated in green, and in this case the Message board announces that White is in check on the Long Diagonal (as seen by the King).

On Checkmate, both sides are revealed, for example:

Notice how the Replay recorder rewind button is now illuminated. Press this to rewind to the start of the game, then press the Play button to see the game.

The animation effects (first introduced in V3.04) can turned on in the settings panel accessed via the gearwheel icon. This works fine on some computers and operating systems (e.g. my old Linux netbook), but may cause unacceptable flicker on others (e.g. Macs).

You can save a recorded game with the Save button on the recorder. You can retrieve and replay a saved game using the Open button.

Choose the Robot as your opponent and then press Kriegspiel. You will be assigned to play either Black or White at random. You will now see only your own pieces, and the Handover/Takeover screens are unnecessary, just as they would be when you play against a remote opponent on another computer. If you put the robot in check, the robot pauses momentarily so that you can see the check direction (which will also be reported in the Messageboard). You can slow down the robot with the Replay recorder's Fast - Slow slider control.

You can also play Chess against the Robot, but this will be an unequal contest as the Kriegspiel Robot can't see your pieces! A later version of this program might include a Chess playing robot...

You can also get two robots to play against themselves by pressing the Demo button. The Replay Recorder slider control alters the speed of the robots.

Referee Mode

You can referee a conventional game of Kriegspiel using this mode. You see both sides of the board, and also the referee's announcements. Additionally there is a Lost Pieces tab so you can see at a glance which pieces have gone.

There is also an Undo button which allows you to step back as many moves as you wish to make corrections.

You can rotate the board at any time using rotate button which will turn the board through 90 degrees on each successive click. This facility is available in all modes of play.

Action replays are available as usual through the replay recorder, and games can be saved.

The settings panel allows you control of some further features.

You can also type in the names of the players which will get saved along with the game if you use the replay recorder's save feature. You can also specify the path (directory/folder) where games will be saved.

Your Skype name will be picked up automatically when you connect to Skype for a network game (see Networked Games below).

The default connection protocol for networked games is Skype. If you choose the Jeeva protocol, you will need to specify the IP address of where you are running the freeware Jeeva chat server on your LAN. You have the option to change the port number which is used by Jeeva, but note that you need to change this in Jeeva and in both the players' settings.

You can also turn off the animation effects in replay or demo mode, if the animation is causing too much flicker on your computer.

You can play Kriegspiel (or Chess) with a remote opponent using Skype. Skype provides a data channel for applications to communicate with each other, in addition to the well known free telephony features.

Disclaimer: This product uses the Skype API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by Skype

Kriegspiel uses the Skype data channel to pass moves and messages between two the players' computer referees, so that networked play is possible. Both players must have each other's Skype name in their list of contacts. It is not necessary to make a Skype speech connection in order to play, although it probably helps of course! You can send text messages to your opponent by typing in the Message panel where it says "Type here".

To play using Skype, you need to be logged in to Skype. Then press the Connect button to cause Kriegspiel to connect to Skype.

Skype will respond by asking you if you want to authorise the connection to Kriegspiel (via the SkypeAPI4Java package). This will simply establish access to Skype's data channel. The exact way Skype asks you may vary. The screen-shot shows the friendly behaviour of Skype on my Mac.
If the response isn't immediately evident, check if there os an event flag in the Skype window. (The Skype-Linux connector does not yet work in this version, V3.02)
Click on the event flag, and you should see
Click on javaw.exe to get to Skype's authorisation window, and give java permission to use Skype.

When you have achieved a connection to Skype, the connect lamp will change from grey to red. Skype will also pass the list of your contacts to Kriegspiel and those which are On-Line will show up in blue.

You opponent also needs to undertake the same steps before you are ready to play.

To start a game, one of you must first click on the intended opponents name to establish a connection - the connect lamp should now turn green. Now press the Kriegspiel (or Chess) button. The opponent will receive a challenge inviting him to play the color offered by the referee, according to the announcement rules in the challenger's settings.

The game ends when one of you resigns, or offers a draw which is accepted, or the game reaches Checkmate or Stalemate.

Networked games on your home LAN

You can play on two computers connected to your home LAN, either using Skype (recommended), or if you prefer, you can run the freeware Jeeva chatserver locally.

You will need to download this, e.g. from the Code Project Jeeva page and run it on ONE of the computers. Then in the settings panels of both Kriegspiel packages, choose the Jeeva protocol and put in the local IP address of the computer running the server. You will also need to enter the player's name which will appear in your opponent's List of Opponents.

Both Kriegspiel packages need to Connect to the server, and the opponent's names should appear when both are connected.

One of you can then click on the opponent's name and then Kriegspiel or Chess to challenge the other to a game.