What game modes and account features does picklechess offer?

picklechess is a mini chess variant where you pick your pieces before playing. It offers four ways to play — Daily Challenge, Weekly Challenge, bot games, and friend or matchmaking games — plus an optional account that syncs your rating and progress across devices. You can play as a guest, but guest profiles are saved only on the device you're using.

Game modes

Daily Challenge and Weekly Challenge

The Daily Challenge is a puzzle-style mode: checkmate in as few moves as possible. Results screens show a Normal and Hard attempt, plus a weekly variant. Leaderboard eligibility, past challenge practice, and streak tracking are part of the results flow. The site displays counters for "Daily Challenge" and "Weekly Challenge" games played.

Play Bot

Bot setup lets you choose a difficulty level: Beginner, Normal, Strong, Advanced, or Master. You also configure the piece set and budget before starting. This is the mode to use if you want to test a piece combination without affecting a competitive rating.

Matchmaking

Matchmaking pairs you with another player. The interface shows a "Finding opponent" state with a Leave Queue option, and a "Game ready" prompt where you tap Ready to start. The example configuration shown is Classic pieces, 8+4 Rapid time control, and a budget of 14–22.

Play Friend

Friend games work by code:

1. Create Game — the site generates a code.
2. Send the code to your friend.
3. Your friend enters it under Play Friend → Join by code.

You can also join by entering a code someone else created.

Piece selection and the budget

Every game starts with a setup phase. White makes the first pick and the first move. You place pawns in the front row and other pieces in the back row. Besides the king, you can pick as many copies of a piece as you can afford — the budget is the constraint.

Piece sets include Classic, Extended, Chaos, Complete, Budget, and Random, with a budget range of 14–22 in the example configuration. Piece descriptions are available in settings, with Alfaerie and Classic display options.

Two rules matter during setup: pawns cannot advance two squares, and pawns can promote only to piece types you bought during setup. Black loses immediately if setup ends with Black's king in check. Castling works by moving the king two squares toward the rook, and games are drawn automatically by threefold repetition or the fifty-move rule.

Account features

The site offers Log in / register, and notes that creating an account syncs your profile across devices and keeps your rating. A guest profile is explicitly labeled as saved on this device. Settings include sound, haptics, animations, and coordinates toggles.

Other features

• Recording mode — a Budget Viewport with BPM, search nodes for White and Black (including custom search nodes), and Generate, Stop, Replay, Candidate, Save, and Download MP4 / Copy JSON controls.
• Challenge Results Lab — previews real result screens using local fixture data only. No games, scores, or attempts are saved there.
• Shop — referenced in the navigation and in the promotion rule (pawns promote only to piece types you bought during setup).
• Install app and Patrons sections appear in the footer.

The site shows "0 games today" as a live counter, so activity levels vary. If you want competitive play with a persistent rating, register an account; if you just want to try a piece combination, guest mode and bot games cover that without signing up.