Twelve Janggi

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How to play

Twelve Janggi is Korean chess shrunk to a 3×4 board and four pieces a side. Everything you capture comes back — as your piece.

The board

Three files (a, b, c) and four ranks. Red starts at the bottom and moves first. Each side lines up a Minister, a King and a General on their own back rank — in that order, left to right from where they sit — with a single Man in front of the King. The show plays the same board turned on its side, with the two players facing each other across it; this is the same position, rotated to fit a phone.

Movement

Every piece moves exactly one square — nothing slides. The dots printed around each piece show the directions it can go, so you never have to memorise them.

Capturing and drops

Move onto an enemy piece to capture it. The captured piece changes sides and goes into your hand. On any later turn you may drop a piece from your hand onto an empty square instead of moving — it comes back facing your way.

The one restriction: you may not drop into the opponent's back rank. Their home is theirs to defend, and you cannot simply parachute a piece onto the square your King is trying to reach. Everywhere else is fair game, including doubling two Men on one file.

A Feudal Lord that gets captured reverts to a plain Man in your hand.

Promotion

A Man that reaches the opponent's back rank must promote to a Feudal Lord, which moves like a King but cannot step backwards diagonally.

Winning

1. Capture the King. There is no checkmate here — you win by actually taking it.
2. The Try. Step your King onto the opponent's back rank. You win — unless they capture your King on their very next move. Miss that capture and the game is over.
3. A player with no legal move loses. The same position occurring three times is a draw.

One warning

Nothing stops you moving your King onto a square where it can be taken — squares like that are outlined in red, and a banner warns you when your King is already under attack. Watching out for it is your job, not the rules'.

Match rules — optional

The show wrapped the game in a match format. None of it changes a single rule of the game itself, and it applies to games on this device only — a clock makes no sense in a game played across two days. Game type at the top of the Game card sets all of it in one pick; change any field by hand and it reads “Custom”. Whatever you choose is remembered for next time.

• Casual — no clock, undo as often as you like, one game. The default.
• Match, 90 seconds — a clock, two mulligans each and a “+90 seconds” each, over a single game.
• Match, 30 seconds — a faster clock, no takebacks at all, best of three.
• Strict — no clock, but every move is final.

What the individual settings do:

• The clock is 90 or 30 seconds a move, not a total budget: the count restarts every turn. Run out and you lose. It pauses when this tab is in the background, when these rules are open, or when the board is off screen, so a phone call can't cost you the game. The computer never has a clock.
• Takebacks are either unlimited, a fixed number of mulligans each, or none. A mulligan takes your last move back but only before your opponent replies — against the computer, which replies instantly, it takes back the pair. With mulligans on, the Undo button becomes the mulligan; an unlimited undo sitting beside a limited one would make the item pointless.
• The time item adds 90 seconds to the move you are on, once a game. It needs a clock to mean anything, so it only appears when you've set one.
• Best of three is first to two wins. Sides swap every game, so neither player keeps the first move, and a drawn game just uses one up.

Playing over days

Sign in and start a game against someone on the allowlist. Neither of you has to be online at the same time — play a move whenever you get a minute and it will be waiting for them. Turn on notifications and your phone will tell you when it's your move. Either of you can ask for a takeback; it only happens if the other one agrees.