Olive Port Marches

Olive Port Marches is a quiet, offline board game for one player against a thinking opponent. It belongs to the draughts family, but it has one defining twist: nothing on this board ever moves diagonally. Every step and every capture runs along a rank or a file. A man walks one square forward or sideways and never retreats. It captures by hopping an adjacent enemy disc to the empty square directly beyond, and the jumped disc leaves the board the instant it is passed, so the square it vacated is already open for the rest of the same chain. That single detail changes how every combination has to be counted. Chains are compulsory. When a capture exists you must take one, and when several chains are available you must play one that removes the greatest number of discs. The board helps you honour that rule: pick up a disc and its legal steps appear, and when a capture is forced every disc that cannot deliver the maximum is dimmed with a short note explaining why. Long chains are stepped through one hop at a time with Continue, and each captured disc is animated off the board exactly as it is jumped. A man that finishes its march on the far rank is crowned. A king slides any distance along a rank or file and captures by flying: any number of empty squares, exactly one enemy disc, then any empty square beyond it, and the chain carries on from wherever it lands. One king can decide a game, and the opponent knows it. WHAT IS INSIDE - Play: an 8x8 board, sixteen discs a side, drawn entirely with vector graphics. - Stats: wins, losses, kings crowned, longest chain, discs taken, pieces left per win. - Levels: three opponent strengths, a choice of who opens, and a switch for rule notes. - How: illustrated explainers of orthogonal movement, immediate removal, flying kings. - Awards: ten honours that can only be earned by playing. THREE OPPONENTS Gentle plays at random inside the rules and is a friendly place to learn where the straight lines run. Steady looks a move ahead and takes whatever the position offers right now. Sharp searches three moves deep with alpha-beta pruning and weighs material, advancement toward the far rank, back-rank and file safety, and mobility, and it understands that a flying king is worth far more than a man. BUILT TO BE LEFT ALONE - Fully offline. The app never touches the internet. - No advertising, no analytics, no accounts, no purchases of any kind. - No sound at all. Feedback is visual, with an optional short haptic tap. - Your record book and settings are stored on the device and survive a restart. - Portrait, warm and dark, and gentle on a phone battery. Set the board, count the chain, and take as many as you can.