Puzzles ·
Found it!!
Some puzzles hide a move worth two exclamation marks. Play it and the piece comes down hard enough to raise the dust, with a red !! to prove it.
The short version
- A red !! on the piece when you find the puzzle's sacrifice, and a blue ! for a quiet move, a saving move or an in-between move
- On the 3D table the piece slams down, rocks on its base and two red exclamation marks land over it; on the paper board a red seal is stamped on
- +2 XP for a !! and +1 for a ! when you solve the puzzle clean on your first try
- The move is written into your scoresheet with its !! or !, the way an annotator would
- Reduce motion and the mark simply appears; turn sound on and you'll hear it land
Chess annotators have one way of saying “that was something”: two exclamation marks. Now the puzzles say it too. When a puzzle’s answer starts with giving something away (a rook thrown in front of the king, a queen left where it can be taken) and you find it, the move gets a !!. The piece goes up, holds for a beat, comes down hard and rocks on its base the way a heavy piece does when you set it down with some feeling. On the 3D table two solid red exclamation marks come down over it and a little dust lifts round its foot; on the paper board a sealing-wax red !! is pressed onto it.
Quieter puzzles get a blue ! instead: the move that isn’t a check or a capture but wins anyway, the waiting move that leaves them with nothing good to do, the one move that saves the day, or the in-between move that comes before the obvious one. A crisp landing, a blue mark, no fuss.
A little extra for finding it yourself
Solve the puzzle clean on your first try, no hint and no slip, and the !! adds 2 XP to your Prep level and the ! adds 1, on top of the puzzle’s own. It’s part of the day’s puzzle XP, so it can’t be farmed, and your puzzle rating doesn’t see it at all. The heading still says what the puzzle is worth without it: telling you there’s a !! in there would be telling you to look for the sacrifice.
Everywhere you play puzzles
Practice, the Climb, Today’s puzzle, the opening sets and Scramble all have it. In Scramble the moment is shorter and the next move never waits for it, because the clock doesn’t either. The move goes into your scoresheet with its mark, and when the puzzle’s over the card tells you which move it was, found or not.
If your phone is set to reduce motion, nothing lifts, slams or shakes: the mark is just there. About one puzzle in six has a !! and about one in six a !. Most have neither, which is rather the point.