SHAHMAT

SHAHMAT turns chess movement into a search. Three enemy kings are hidden somewhere on an empty 8x8 board, and you cannot see them. What you can do is send out scouts. Each scout is a knight or a bishop, and once it lands on a square it reports back by colour. Green means at least one hidden king stands on a square that piece attacks. Red means none does, which rules out every square on its lines.

Each hunt opens with three scouts already on the board, so there is something to read from the first second. After that the tray hands you one piece at a time, sometimes a bishop and sometimes a knight, and you drop it on any empty square. Every scout costs 3 points from a starting score of 100. When you think you know where a king is, you press the Locator and tap that square. A right call reveals the king. A wrong one costs a life and 4 points, and you only have three lives. A Radar button lights in gold every square where a king could still be, given the clues so far.

The daily has three hunts, numbered together as one daily (Daily #12 on 13 November 2026, counted from #1 on 2 November). The boards come from a seed of the date and the hunt's number, so everyone gets the same three. Solving all three earns gold for the day, two earns silver and one earns bronze. The start card keeps a count of days played, a streak and your best, all stored in the browser with no account. When the daily is done, a separate SHAHMAT Unlimited page deals more boards.

The game is by J Krishnamurthi and sits in Take5Games, a menu of small daily games that also includes the card sudoku QUINT. The chess pieces are the familiar open cburnett set, and the board, tray and buttons fit a phone held upright as well as a desktop window.

SHAHMAT suits players who know how a knight jumps and a bishop slides and like a search with a bit of risk in it, in the spirit of Minesweeper or Battleships. A hunt takes a few minutes, and the three together fit a short break.