Checkers — Play Free Online

About this Checkers game

Checkers (also called draughts) is the old two-player board game played on the dark squares of an eight-by-eight board, and this version brings it to the browser as a simple, uncluttered HTML5 game made with Construct. One side plays black pieces and the other plays white. The wooden board is marked with the letters A to H and the numbers 1 to 8 along its edges, and the labels are printed from both sides, so it reads the right way up for whichever player is sitting across from you. The screen is laid out in portrait, which suits phones and tablets as well as a desktop window.

Two ways to play

• Single player sets you against a computer opponent. After your turn, the computer looks for captures and legal moves and answers on its own.
• Multiplayer is for two people sharing one device. You take turns moving your own colour on the same board.

When the game ends, a winner window announces the result, with a separate win or lose sound when you are playing the computer.

How to move

Everything is done with a click of the mouse or a tap on the screen. Select one of your pieces and the game highlights the squares it can reach; pick one of those squares to make the move. Pieces travel diagonally forward one square at a time. To capture, you jump diagonally over an enemy piece that has an empty square behind it, and the captured piece is removed from the board. A piece that reaches the far row is crowned and becomes a king, shown with a crown symbol, and kings are free to move backward as well as forward. The goal is to take all of your opponent's pieces or leave them with no move to make.

The menu has buttons for pause, resume, restart and exit, plus a sound toggle if you want to play quietly.

Tips

• Keep your back row filled for as long as you can. While those squares are occupied, your opponent cannot crown a king on your side.
• Move pieces in pairs. A piece with a friend behind it cannot be jumped from that direction.
• Look one move ahead before every jump. A capture that lands your piece next to two enemy pieces often hands back a double jump.
• Try to crown early. A king that can move both ways is worth far more than an ordinary piece in the endgame.
• Play the computer first to learn the highlighted moves, then switch to multiplayer for a game with a friend.