Introduction

The Chess Puzzles Application is designed to allow a user of a wireless BREW enabled phone to download chess puzzles to a handset and solve chess problems offline.

This version only supports Kyocera 3035 phone with other versions coming shortly.

How to start

This document assumes that the reader is familiar with principles of navigation of BREW powered cell phones. For those users who are not familiar with keys and menu navigation we suggest consulting the phone manual or go to http://www.qualcomm.com/brew for more information.

With the first-time launch of the application the user has to resister with the server by entering the wireless phones number and selecting a user name and password for future authentication. After the registration is complete, the user is taken to the download screen where the list of available is presented.

Selecting and downloading puzzles

All puzzles loaded on the chess server are available to the users who subscribe to the service. The puzzles in the list are sorted in reverse chronological order, most recently posted to the list show at the top. The puzzles that the user did not download yet are shown in bold. All puzzles have description that can be viewed by pressing the respective menu button. The puzzles that are downloaded to the phone remain there until they are deleted, even after the user exited the application.

Once on the download screen the user can scroll through the list of the puzzles, review their descriptions and select for download those which are interesting. The puzzles on the list are shown on the phone 10 at a time and next 10 are loaded once the user scrolled to the last puzzle on the phone. To download the puzzles the user has to either press a Download button on the Download screen or to press Yes after viewing the description of the puzzle.

Once the puzzle is downloaded to the phone, its name is shown in regular font and the user can select more puzzles or to terminate the download process and turn to solving the downloaded puzzles. To finish the download process push End button on the Download screen. After that the phone breaks the connection with the server and moves the user to the Select screen, where the user can select and solve the puzzles.

The space on the phone is limited and the application allows the user to remove puzzles from the phone once they were solved to allow space for new ones. To do that, select the right puzzle on the Select screen and press Delete button.

Solving puzzles

The puzzle is solved when the player finds a way to accomplish the goal stated in the puzzles description no matter what moves the opponent makes. The puzzles loaded to the server are checked to have only one solution, so if the goal is accomplished, for example the mate to black is reached in three moves, the puzzle is solved.

The pieces are moved by selecting them by pressing the center button, then moving the frame to one of the allowed locations using arrows and then releasing it there by pressing the middle button again. In order to save keystrokes and server interactions, the game calculates all possible moves for each piece prior to the move and then allows positioning of the frame only in valid squares.

The dotted frames on the origin and the destination indicate the opponents last move. If after the player had picked up the picked, he/she decided to move another piece, moving the frame onto the pieces original position and pushing the center button can put it down. After this the frame can be moved again.

In order to make the process of solving the puzzle more interactive, the game has a built-in chess engine that makes the moves on behalf of the defending side. The moves are made with intent to prevent the player from accomplishing the goal and thus the process of solving the puzzle becomes trying to defeat the engine in the required number of moves.

Options while solving the puzzle

Additional options are available while solving the puzzle from the menu. The menu is called by pressing the Clear button while on the puzzle board. The menu allows the player to view the solution to the puzzle, to take back the last move (including the opponents response) and to restart the puzzle from the initial position.

Also the player may go back to the list of puzzles by selecting the Cancel button on the menu.