The Block Duel

They can refuse your move.

Walk into a town you have not trained for and the game does not stop you at a locked door. It stops you on the board. If an opponent is well above your team’s level, they can refuse the move you just played: your piece slides back where it was, your turn is gone, and you have to find a different move.

The game calls this a parry. It is the reason your collection matters — the pieces you catch are not decorations, and how high you have levelled them is what decides whether the next town lets you in.

ParriedIt goes through

1. You find your best move. The Wildfire lifts and crosses the board.
2. Refused. The piece slides back, the refusal is announced, and the turn passes to them.
3. A parried move can never be parried again. Improve your position, play it once more —
4. — and it goes through.

how many they get

One parry for every three levels they stand above you.

Your team’s level is the average level of the six pieces you have out. The opponent has a level too. Take the difference, divide by three, and round down — that is how many refusals they get. They are handed out at the start of the game, and there is no dice roll anywhere in it.

1. 3 levelsabove your team1 parry
2. 6 levelsabove your team2 parries
3. 9 levelsabove your team3 parries
4. 12 levelsabove your team4 parries
5. 15 levelsabove your team5 parries
6. 30 levelsabove your team10 parries

There is no upper limit. Forty levels above you is thirteen refusals, and it will use all thirteen. Under three levels of difference it gets none at all, so a fair fight is a fair fight.

What it costs you to be brave

Nothing stops you from trying anyway. Beating something above your level pays up to 75% more experience, and the further above you it stands, the bigger the purse. At twenty-six levels short, a steward stops you at the Club door to say plainly that this is a bad idea — and then stands aside, because it is still your game.

when they are not allowed to

A parry never breaks the rules of chess.

It takes your turn. It never touches the position. No piece is moved for you, no false stalemate is manufactured, no check is made unanswerable. These five rules hold in every game, against every opponent, at every difficulty:

• Never in the opening. Nothing can be refused until you are five moves in — the first four moves each are untouchable. A game with no moves in it is not a game.
• Never while you are in check. Getting out of check is always allowed.
• Never when you are nearly stuck. With fewer than three legal moves on the board, no move of yours can be refused.
• Never the same move twice. Once a move of yours has been refused, that exact move can never be refused again. Improve the position, play it again, and it goes through.
• Never twice in one turn. Whatever you play instead is always accepted.

And never at a Chessino table. Wagered games are built with no parries at all — the house does not get to turn aside a move you paid to make.

how they spend them

They get more careful as they run low.

An opponent holding plenty of refusals throws them around. One down to its last saves it. You can feel this change happen mid-game.

1. 5 or more left

   They refuse almost everything

   They have more refusals than the game has turns to use them in, so anything you play that clears the five rules above gets refused.

2. 2 to 4 left

   Only your good moves

   A check, a promotion, taking a real piece, or the move the engine itself would have played. Quiet moves go straight through, and they leave a few turns between refusals.

3. 1 left

   Saved for a disaster

   They hold the last one back for a checkmate, a queen, a promotion, or the engine’s own choice. Everything else goes through untouched.

How do they know which move to refuse? While you are still thinking, the chess engine looks at your position and works out the move it would play if it were you. That is the move worth taking off you, so that is the one they refuse. It never guesses and it never rolls a dice: if the move clears the five rules above and they have a refusal left, they use it.

now the other way round

Out-level them, and you get hints instead.

This works in both directions. If you are the one standing above the opponent, the same maths gives you hints — a button you can press mid-game to be shown a strong move. The further ahead of them you are, the more hints you start the game holding.

1. 5 levelsabove them1 hint
2. 10 levelsabove them2 hints
3. 15 levelsabove them3 hints
4. 20 levelsabove them4 hints
5. 25 levelsabove them5 hints

Five is the ceiling, and it is a slower ladder than the parry’s on purpose — five levels a hint against three levels a refusal. A hint hands you a whole move. A parry only asks you to find a different one.

What a hint actually does

Press it and the engine studies your position properly, then lights up two squares: where to move from, and where to move to. It does not play the move for you and it does not explain itself. Working out why that is the move is still your job — which is the entire point of a game that is trying to teach you chess.

How many you may hold at once

The ceiling drops as the difficulty rises. On the hardest card there are none at all.

Three other ways to hold a hint

• Buy one. The Insight Charm adds a hint to this battle — the only way to hold one when the opponent out-levels you.
• Field a piece that gives them. Several queens in the collection are worth a free hint every game. The Ember Rider is worth three, and no move of yours can be parried while he rides with you — but lose a piece and his unspent hints burn away for the rest of that game.
• Ask a wild piece directly. Catching puzzles have their own button: show me the move. It works every time, and it halves what the catch pays.