How to play Neon Chess Tactics
Neon Chess Tactics is a set of eight hand-crafted chess puzzles, and every one is White to move and mate in one. There are no long combinations to calculate and no second chances inside a position: a single move ends the game on the spot, and your job is to find it. Each puzzle is built around a classic tactical idea — a back-rank invasion, a queen sacrifice onto a defended square, a smothered knight, or the ancient Arabian mate — so every solution also teaches you a pattern you will meet again in real games.
Controls
- Select a piece: Click or tap one of your white pieces. Its legal moves light up — cyan dots for quiet moves, pink rings for captures.
- Play the move: Click or tap a highlighted square to move there. Clicking the selected piece again deselects it.
- Show solution: Stuck? The 💡 button reveals the killing move, but it resets your streak.
- Next / Restart: Move to the next puzzle or restart the whole set of eight at any time.
Tips & strategy
Start every puzzle by asking what the black king's escape squares are — a mate in one is almost always about a king with nowhere to run. Look for back-rank weaknesses where the king is fenced in by its own pawns, and check whether a capture can be played onto a square your other pieces defend. Knights are the great smotherers: a knight check can never be blocked, so a king crowded by its own pieces is already halfway mated. Finally, verify your candidate the way a tactician does: after your move, can the king move, can anything capture your piece, and can anything block the check? If the answer is no three times, you have found it.
Scoring
Each puzzle you solve on your own extends your streak by one; a wrong move or a revealed solution resets the streak to zero. Your best streak is saved on your device, so you can chase a perfect 8-for-8 run across visits. There is no timer — accuracy beats speed in tactics training.