Shroud

Deploy your army in secret. The shroud lifts, and no two games are ever alike. Free, no ads, no accounts. Chess, with the opening you never saw coming.

Shroud is chess with one rule changed, and everything changes with it: the opening is a secret. You place your whole army anywhere on your first three ranks, hidden from your opponent, who is doing the same. Then the shroud lifts, two battle plans collide, and the game begins in a position nobody has ever seen before. There is no checkmate; you win by actually capturing the king. No opening theory. No memorised lines. Just you, reading a board that didn't exist a minute ago.

That one twist carries a long way. Stack both rooks on a file you plan to tear open. Wall off your king behind pawns. Spend a 39-point budget on thirteen knights and see what happens. Play the reveal, or play fog of war — where the shroud never lifts and you see only what your pieces see. Fight the campaign's seven rivals, each with their own formation and plenty to say about your defeat. Take on the daily puzzle, the same one the whole world gets. Or host a room and ambush a friend.

And when the battle ends, Shroud teaches. The recap grades every move you played, names the moment the game turned, and then walks you back through it — putting the pieces in your hands and challenging you to find the move you missed. Losses stop being losses; they become next game's opening idea. If you invent a formation you're proud of, submit it from the built-in Lab — the best ones become daily puzzles, credited to their inventor.

All of it runs on one little machine: a handheld LCD from a parallel 1989, with real button-feel sounds and fourteen shells to dress it in. Dark and Light mode are free; the rest come in a single one-time cosmetic pack — the only purchase in the game, and it never touches gameplay.

Free. No ads. No accounts. Fully offline except online play itself.