signal: open · terrain: veiled
Duet is one lesson from a larger world — a board where restraint matters more than reach, where higher ground sees further and costs more, and where the fog only lifts for those willing to move through it. Play the classic duel, or step into Fog Mode and let the terrain decide what you're allowed to know.
Classic Duet only for now — no Fog Mode, no AI opponent. Create a match and share the code, or join a friend's match below.
Veiled Dominion · Remote
Waiting for an opponent…
Veiled Dominion
New here? Type e2e4 in the box below and press Enter to make your first move.
Fog Mode is on. Pass the device and look away.
Type a coordinate move like e2e4, or a single square like e4 to query. Press Enter to execute. When Fog Mode is on, querying a square outside your vision reports only what you would actually know: unexplored, or last known and possibly stale.
Speech input fills the command box with what it heard but never submits a move on its own. Review or edit the text, then press Enter or Execute to confirm.
Move: e2e4 · Look at a square: e4 · Press Enter · or click two squares on the board below · or tap Speak Move
Ask about setup, accessibility, or the game's mechanics.
The board rises from a height of 0 on each side's home rank to a height of 3 across the center two ranks, like the terraced board this mode is modeled on. Terrain affects sight and combat, not movement — pieces still move exactly as in classic chess, including Veiled pieces' one-square restriction.
Each piece sees a radius of squares: 2 for Pawns, 3 for standard pieces, 4 for Rebirth and Death (drops by 1 while Veiled). Standing on higher ground extends that radius by 1 square for every level you're above the target square. Standing on lower ground, you cannot see past a higher square unless it's adjacent to you. Squares are either currently visible, previously seen but stale (shown dimmed — the piece there may have moved since), or unexplored (shown black).
Querying a square with the command bar (or asking a screen reader to look) reports only what you'd actually know: the true contents if visible, the last-known contents with a staleness warning if stale, or "unexplored" if you've never seen it. You may still attempt a move into fog — legality is checked against the true board, same as a calculated risk in the dark.
Moving onto an enemy-occupied square attacks it instead of capturing instantly. Each piece has HP and an attack value:
Pawn: 10 HP / 4 dmg · Knight & Bishop: 20 HP / 8 dmg · Rook: 28 HP / 10 dmg · Queen: 40 HP / 14 dmg · Rebirth: 30 HP / 6 dmg · Death: unkillable, cannot attack or be attacked.
Attacking from higher ground deals 25% more damage. If the target survives, your piece holds its position — the fight continues over future turns. If the target is reduced to 0 HP, it's removed and your piece moves into the square, same as a classic capture (a promoting Pawn becomes a full-HP Rebirth).
Duet is a single shared screen, so Fog Mode uses an honor-system handoff between turns: pass the device and look away until the next player is ready to reveal their view. This isn't enforced by the software — it works the same way a physical hidden-information board game does.
The AI opponent and Spectator mode are disabled in Fog Mode — the AI's move selection doesn't yet account for HP combat, so it's human vs. human only for now.
She was made too bright. Formed by Death after a broken law in Heaven, Rebirth carries a power she hasn't learned to carry safely — anything that lingers too close to her, ally or enemy, gets stripped down to its most basic capability. She isn't cruel. She's simply more than the board was built to hold.
Her mentor, and the only stable ground near her. He cannot be captured, cannot be pushed aside, and anything standing close enough to him is shielded from her aura entirely. Not a guardian standing over a weapon — a teacher, still midway through the lesson.
Rebirth's presence Veils any piece that ends a turn too close to her — reduced to pawn-like movement for a round. Death's Sanctuary is the one place that effect can't reach.
None of this is required - Duet is free to play and always will be. If you'd like to put something toward Loptr Lab's work on Veiled Dominion, here are a couple of no-pressure options. Pick whichever fits, or none at all.
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