# Eastern Dark Chess — Eastern Chess Culture & Art > Eastern Chess Culture & Art (iPhone/iPad app by 尚 王.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/eastern-dark-chess/id6776653633 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [尚 王](https://appshunter.io/developer/1863829527) - Category: Games, Board, Strategy - Price: Free - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.6 · 422 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-07-07 - Data updated: 2026-08-16 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/eastern-dark-chess/id6776653633/reviews.md ## What is Eastern Dark Chess? Chinese Chess Skirmish is a beautifully crafted, fully offline Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) and Dark Chess (Banqi) experience for iPhone and iPad. Whether you're a lifelong Xiangqi master or just curious about Asia's most beloved strategy game, you'll find a mode that fits. TWO TIMELESS GAMES, ONE APP • Classic Xiangqi — the 2,500-year-old game of generals, cannons, and palace strategy. Play standard Xiangqi or "Skirmish," a fast-paced variant where horses and elephants are replaced with extra chariots for a rapid, attack-heavy showdown. • Dark Chess (Banqi) — the popular face-down variant where every piece is hidden until flipped. Mix bluffing with classical strategy across nine hand-painted board layouts: Classic 8×4, Cross-32, Cross-64, H-shape, Tian-shape, Double 8×8, Ri-shape, and more. SMART AI, THREE DIFFICULTIES Easy plays a polished, beginner-friendly game with built-in quiescence search to avoid blunders. Medium and Hard use deeper minimax with alpha-beta pruning — strong enough to challenge seasoned players. Every move is honest: the AI never peeks at hidden Dark Chess pieces. TWO PLAYERS, ONE DEVICE Pass-and-play mode lets two players share one screen. Perfect for couples, friends, or family game night — no internet, no accounts, no waiting for a match. BEAUTIFUL HOME SCREEN WIDGET Add a Chinese Chess widget to your home screen and choose from seven hand-crafted themes: Bronze Relief, Cyberpunk, Wasteland, Storybook, Ancient Scroll, Ink Wash, and Imperial Jade. Switch any time with iOS's Edit Widget UI. Supports Medium and Large sizes on iPhone, plus Extra Large on iPad. NINE LANGUAGES English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish, French, Italian. OFFLINE • AD-FREE • PRIVACY-RESPECTING No accounts. No ads. No tracking. No internet required. Just chess. Designed for landscape on every device — iPhone (compact, dense layout) and iPad (spacious, room-to-breathe layout). Includes piece-display options (traditional characters or pictorial icons), background music with sequence/random/recycle playlist modes, and adjustable AI difficulty. Whether you're learning your first Xiangqi moves or playing your thousandth Banqi game, Chinese Chess Skirmish is built to be the most thoughtful and beautiful Chinese chess app on iOS. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.0.5 — 2026-08-13 New boards & rules • Three new Casual boards — Four Islands (a water cross split by cross-island tunnels), Zigzag (a snowy diagonal with tunnels crossing it), and Forbidden Water (an impassable central pool). • Flying General rule in Classic — leave your general facing the enemy's down an open file and you lose, just like real Xiangqi. Smarter AI • Hard is significantly stronger — deeper, faster calculation that presses harder and is very tough to beat. • The AI now recognizes the deadly double-cannon trap, escapes through tunnels when cornered, and protects its valuable pieces instead of abandoning them. • Medium no longer throws pieces away on bad captures (including the cannon-jump trap), and the AI accounts for tiles that freeze a piece. Music & sound • Random music now truly shuffles through every track instead of repeating. • Music and sound effects reliably come back when you return to the app. Polish • New chess-flip animation makes reveals easy to see. • Fairer, more natural random board setups; assorted board/terrain visual fixes. ### 1.0.4 — 2026-08-01 Added the Flying General rule to Classic Mode Smarter AI that avoids—and takes advantage of—the double-cannon trap Significantly improved endgame strength in Hard Mode Fully randomized board shuffling in Casual Mode Special tiles now align perfectly with the board ### 1.0.3 — 2026-07-15 NEW: Soldiers can enter water, but freeze for one turn. Rules available in all 9 languages. Tunnels always connect opposite sides of the board. Fairer piece shuffle—no same-side clusters. No possible action means defeat. Smarter Hard AI avoids bad trades. Better iPhone full-screen fit and smoother victory animation. ### 1.0.2 — 2026-07-13 New Water, Snow, and Tunnel terrain cells on select Casual boards, complete with in-game rules. Refreshed artwork for Classic and H-shaped boards. Smarter, more challenging AI with clearer difficulty levels. New capture and victory sounds. Sound effects can now play alongside music from other apps. Smoother piece animations, plus various fixes and improvements. ### 1.0.1 — 2026-07-09 AI improved: it now captures safe prey, chases targets, and only flips pieces when no better move exists. Winner board localization fixed: it now follows the player’s selected language. SFX after backgrounding fixed: sounds keep working after the app is reopened. Now Playing pill fixed: it now disappears when the player leaves the app. Button glow fully fixed: tap feedback is now browser-managed, so the glow can’t get stuck. Capture particles and screen shake restored; both had broken quietly after the board rewrite. ## More apps by 尚 王 - [Abnormal Translator](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/abnormal-translator/id6757080398) - [Muse Calendar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/muse-calendar/id6757337206) All apps by 尚 王: https://appshunter.io/developer/1863829527 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-16.*