Odin's Viking Chess: Hnefatafl

Need a hand? Email sean@hollender-consulting.com and I'll get back to you.

GETTING STARTED

Odin's Viking Chess is Hnefatafl, the Viking board game, on twelve historical boards. It is a one-time purchase: no ads, no tracking, nothing more to buy — not now, not later. It plays on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac, and the whole game works with no account, signed out of everything, with no network at all.

Every board shares one way of moving: every piece moves like a rook, any distance along a row or column, never jumping. You capture a piece by trapping it between two of yours along a row or column. The attackers win by surrounding the king; the defenders win when the king reaches safety. What changes from board to board is the size, where the king must reach, and how he is taken.

• iPhone and iPad — tap one of your pieces to pick it up; its moves light up. Tap a lit square to move there, or tap the piece again to put it down.
• Apple TV — swipe on the remote to move the highlight to one of your pieces and click to pick it up; swipe to a lit square and click to move. Menu backs out of whatever is open; Play/Pause opens the game menu.
• Mac — click a piece, then click a lit square. From the keyboard: Command-Z undo, Shift-Command-R restart, Shift-Command-M sound, Command-? How to Play.

WAYS TO PLAY

• Vs the computer — Easy, Medium, Hard or Expert on any board, as the attackers or the defenders. Choose your side on the Solo Game screen.
• Pass & Play — two people sharing one screen.
• Play Online — Quick Async Match, Live Match, or an invitation to a friend.
• Play Someone Nearby — two devices in the same room, no account needed.

THE TWELVE BOARDS

• Fetlar — the modern standard, 11×11. Twelve defenders guard a king who must reach a corner. Only the king may enter the corners and the throne.
• Copenhagen — Fetlar with the shieldwall, the edge fort and the encirclement: the balanced game played online. A row of pieces along the edge can be taken at once; the king can win by building a fort on the edge; the attackers can win by cutting the king and every defender off from every edge.
• Brandub — the quickest board, 7×7, from the Irish poems. Four defenders, eight attackers, a king who wins at a corner.
• Tablut — the Sámi game Linnaeus recorded in 1732. The king wins on any edge.
• Sea Battle — Tablut's layout with no special squares at all. The defenders move first and the king (the cargo ship) runs for the edge.
• Ealdfæder — the defenders start in a square, and three attackers take the king at the edge.
• Tawlbwrdd 9×9 and 11×11 — the Welsh game. A king captured like any piece, free to escape at any edge.
• York — the museum's 1980 rules: a weaponless king, edge escape, and the attackers win by encirclement.
• Imperial Contest — a Victorian parlour game (Jaques, 1855). A coin toss decides who moves first, the emperor moves four squares at most, and a move takes only one piece — you choose which.
• Hnefatafl 13×13 — Fetlar's rules with one more ring of squares.
• Alea Evangelii — the vast Anglo-Saxon board, 19×19, 73 pieces and sixteen corner squares to reach.

Pick a board in World of Viking Chess on the main menu, or tap the board name on the setup card. Your choice applies to new games — a game already under way keeps the board it started on. How to Play, also on the main menu, gives you the rules and the history of whichever board is selected.

HOUSE RULES

House Rules, the third circle on the main menu (also in Settings), lets you change a board's rules for your own games: every piece moves one square only; the king takes part in captures or not; the empty throne counts as an enemy piece or not; a third repetition is a draw or a loss for the player who repeats; and who moves first. Each switch has a "board's rule" setting that follows the board's own history. House Rules apply to every new game: solo, Pass & Play, and online, where a game is played under the House Rules of the player who opens it, so both players always play the same game. An invitation from a friend for a turn-based game, or from someone nearby, names those rules before you accept, and a rematch keeps them. In a live game the host is chosen by a coin toss, and the host's rules apply. How to Play, opened during a game, shows the rules it is using.

THE SIDES

The attackers (the darker pieces) surround the board and move first on most boards. The defenders (the lighter pieces) start in the middle with the king, who wears the gold rim. In a solo game you choose your side; online, the first game's sides are drawn by a coin toss and every rematch swaps them, so nobody keeps the easier seat.

THE COMPUTER OPPONENTS

Four strengths that genuinely play differently. Easy plays loosely and makes human mistakes. Medium thinks a few moves ahead. Hard plans carefully. Expert searches deepest. Hnefatafl is not a solved game, so every board can be won from either side.

THE COACH

Switch Coach on before you start a game against the computer — or tap the lightbulb during one — and the app points out a move worth considering, with a short note in the king's terms: a line to escape, a ring tightening, a capture waiting. It exists only in games against the computer; a hint in Pass & Play would be read by the person sitting opposite you.

A game you start with the Coach switched on still goes into your win/loss record, but it earns no XP. Turning the Coach on part-way through a game marks that game as assisted, which keeps it out of the Unaided achievement.

UNDO AND RESTART

Undo takes back your last move; against the computer it takes back the computer's reply as well. Restart clears the board and starts a new game on the same board, under the House Rules as they are set now. Both are in the row of round controls under the board, and neither exists in an online match — there is no taking a move back from an opponent. Online, that control is Resign instead.

SAVED GAMES

Up to six games are kept. Every move saves automatically, so leaving the app never loses a game. The most recent save becomes the Continue card at the top of the main menu and the rest sit under Saved Games; hold one there to rename or delete it. A finished game leaves the list. Online matches are not saved this way — they live on Game Center's side and are waiting for you on the Play Online hub.

MY GAMES AREN'T SYNCING BETWEEN DEVICES

Saved games, your records, your rank and even your chosen language sync through your own iCloud account. Make sure every device is signed in to the same Apple Account with iCloud Drive turned on. On Apple TV that is under Settings > Users & Accounts. After a fresh install it can take a moment — or one relaunch — for the first sync to arrive.

APPLE TV IS A SHARED DEVICE

On Apple TV each person's profile gets its own saved games, records, rank and Game Center account. Switching profiles in Control Center switches the app over to that person's games.

PLAYING ONLINE

Three ways to play someone who isn't in the room:

• Quick Async Match — pairs you with another player automatically. It is turn-based, so you each move at your own pace over hours or days, and Game Center tells you when it's your move.
• Live Match — both of you connected at once, moves landing instantly.
• Invite a Friend — pick someone by name, choose Live or Async, and they are asked to accept. An invitation arrives on the Play Online hub as its own row with Join and Decline.

These three need you signed in to Game Center (Settings > Game Center).

Matchmaking is per board: a Quick Async Match on Fetlar pairs you with somebody else who chose Fetlar. The hub marks the boards where players are active — a board without that mark simply hasn't been checked, which is not the same as empty, so it is always worth starting a search.

When a game ends, either player can offer a rematch. Every rematch swaps the sides: whoever defended last time attacks next.

WHY CAN'T THIS ACCOUNT SEND A LIVE INVITATION?

Because Game Center will not deliver a live invitation from an account that has communication limits, and on a child account those come from the account's age under Family Sharing — not from anything set in Screen Time. Nothing you can switch on the device changes it. The app checks before it asks, so you get an explanation instead of an invitation that silently never arrives.

Everything else on that account still works: Live Match will still find a random opponent, a friend can still invite that account, Quick Async Match works normally, and Play Someone Nearby doesn't use Game Center at all.

PLAY SOMEONE NEARBY

Open Play Someone Nearby on both devices while they are on the same Wi-Fi network or close enough for Bluetooth. Each device appears on the other's screen; tap a name to invite, and the other person taps Accept. No account, no internet and no server are involved: the two devices talk to each other directly, and the first time you open the screen your device asks for Local Network permission so that it can. If a device never appears, check that permission in Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network — a fresh install resets it.

RANKS AND XP

Every game you finish earns XP: a win the full amount, a draw half, a loss a quarter. Harder computer opponents are worth more, and bigger boards pay more — the 19×19 is worth twice the 7×7. Your first game each day on each board earns a bonus, and online games are worth the most, win or lose. XP takes you up the ladder from Wanderer to Raider, Shieldbearer, Huscarl, Jarl, High King and the Grand Kings; your level never goes down. The full table, every leaderboard and every achievement are on the ranks page linked from the app's main menu.

MY QUESTION ISN'T HERE

Email sean@hollender-consulting.com with the board you were on, the device, and what you expected to happen. The version number is in the corner of the main menu — it helps.