Checkers

Checkers is the game everybody already knows, laid out here on a lithographed tin board in cream and racing red with a rolled metal edge and forty years of scuffs printed into the squares. The discs are chunky turned wood, scarlet and charcoal, and a king is exactly what it should be: a second disc stacked on top with a gold star pressed into the crown. There is a jar of lemonade sweating on the cloth, a folded newspaper at the edge of the table and birds in the hedge.

Pick your rules. English draughts runs on eight by eight with twelve discs a side: men step and jump forward, kings move a single square in any direction, a jump is always compulsory and you may take whichever sequence you fancy. International draughts fills a ten by ten board with twenty discs each, lets men jump backward as well as forward, and hands the kings the run of the diagonals — they slide any distance, take a disc from across the board and land wherever they like beyond it. There you must take the line that captures the most, the captured discs stay standing until the move is over, and a man is only crowned if the move actually ends on the far row.

Play red or black against a computer that thinks in the background while you look around the board, at Easy, Normal or Sharp. Pass the tablet back and forth in two-player mode, where a face-to-face layout turns each player's panel toward them. Or open the puzzle box: twenty-four hand-built endings, Red to play and win in one move or two, from a simple triple jump to a flying king crossing the whole board. Tap or drag, undo a whole exchange, ask for a hint, flip the board, and read the game back in proper numbered notation.