Your Club card ·
Your stamps got heavier
Every stamp on your Club card is a raised seal now, pressed into the card like a postmark and inked, and when the card moves the light moves across it.
The short version
- Each stamp is a round seal with its own mark: a pawn for your first game, a knight at ten, a cup of tea for a Regular
- The top step of each set gets a gold rim: a hundred games, Fixture, Castellan
- Swing your card, tilt your phone, or move your mouse over your stamps, and the light slides across the ink
- On your own page, the ones still to come are pressed in blind, waiting for ink
- Finished puzzle collections get their own badges: a board square with a highlighter swipe
Stamps used to look like someone had a rubber stamp and a free afternoon. Now each one is a seal pressed into card stock: the paper lifts, the ink sits in the relief, and the word goes round the rim, where a postmark puts the town. Your first game is a pawn, your first win is a king halfway to the floor, and Regular is a cup of tea, because by the third night somebody knows how you take it.
Catch the light
Move your mouse across your stamps, or on a phone drag or flick your card, and a soft sheen moves over the ink as it swings. The gold ones (a hundred games, Fixture, Castellan) flash a little more, as foil does. Where your phone shares its tilt without asking (most Android phones), tilting it does the same; there’s nothing to allow first (more in Give your card a flick).
On your own page, the stamps you haven’t earned yet are pressed into the paper with no ink, so you can see what’s coming. Earn one while you’re looking and the ink arrives with the press. Your own page also puts the Castle round the rim of a Regular or a Fixture; everyone else sees the stamp and how many, never where.
Prep badges too
Finish a puzzle collection and its badge is a little board square now, with a highlighter swipe and the collection’s mark: a fork for Forks, a # for the mates, an open book for an opening, with a ring or a dot for the side you play. Still only yours.
If you’ve asked your phone or computer for less motion, the light stays put. They’re still very nice stamps.