Giant Book Checkers

You play white, moving up the board, against the computer's red. Pieces move one square diagonally forward and capture by jumping over an enemy piece into the empty square behind it, and another jump with the same piece may follow. A piece reaching the far row is crowned king and can move backward as well. Take all twelve enemy pieces, or leave the other side without a move, to win.

The computer plays as the book's program does, and moves first, as in the book. It looks at its pieces from the top of the board down and takes the first capture it finds, jumping again while it can; otherwise it moves a piece on its second row to be crowned; otherwise it picks at random among moves to squares where you cannot take it; otherwise any move; with no move at all it concedes. The ColecoVision version checks your moves (the book accepted any move). Captures are not compulsory for you, as in the book, while the computer always takes one. The pieces slide across the board, the book's "Good move" and "Got me" come back when you capture, and new music (Kings Row) and sound effects are added.

Controls: either joystick. The stick moves the cursor; the left button picks a piece and then its square, and dots show where it can go. After a jump the piece stays picked for another jump, or the right button ends the turn. The right button with nothing picked offers to concede. The keypad is not used.

ColecoVision version credited in the source to Amy Bienvenu for Amy Studio, written in Amy, her own language, 2026: an adaptation of a BASIC program from Tim Hartnell's Giant Book of Computer Games (Ballantine Books, 1984; first published by Interface Publications, 1983). This is a modern homebrew adaptation, not a commercial Coleco release.