5 vs 10

Draughts fought with gold five-coins against teal ten-coins, every capture forced

2 player, one device
action
arcade
2 player

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About 5 vs 10

The title is about which coin you play as, not a handicap. Both sides start with twelve pieces on the dark squares of an eight-by-eight board — gold fives along the bottom three rows, teal tens along the top — and the rules are draughts, played straight.

What gives it teeth is that capturing is compulsory. If a jump exists anywhere on the board you must take one, and a coin that has jumped must keep jumping while it can. Every move becomes a question about what you are forcing your opponent to do next, because handing them a capture also hands them a destination. Crowning is deliberately modest: reaching the far row ends your turn on the spot, and a crowned coin still moves one square, just in all four diagonals instead of two.

Take either side against the computer, which plays at three different strengths, or pass the device back and forth with somebody else. Games are quick once the captures start chaining.

What is different about this version

Two rule choices shape every game here. Crowning ends the turn immediately, so a coin that reaches the back row mid-chain stops there — you cannot promote and keep eating. And crowned coins are short-range: one square in each of the four diagonals, never the long-distance flying king of international draughts. A crown is a coin that can retreat, not a coin that wins the game.

The board also refuses to let you play it wrongly. Pick up a coin while a capture is on the board and it shakes and says so; break off a chain halfway and it tells you to keep jumping with the same coin. Sixty moves without a capture is a declared draw, warned ten moves out and again at five.

How to play 5 vs 10

Pick your side, Play 5 or Play 10, and choose the computer or the person next to you.
Select a coin to light its legal squares, then select one. Coins step one square diagonally forward.
Capture by jumping an adjacent enemy coin into the empty square beyond it, forwards only.
If a capture exists you must take it, and a coin that has captured must keep jumping while it can.
Reaching the far row crowns a coin and ends your turn; the crown adds the two backward diagonals.
Take every enemy coin, or leave your opponent with no legal move.

Controls

Desktop	Click a coin, then click one of the highlighted squares; the board nudges your selection and tells you when a capture is compulsory.
Phone or tablet	Tap a coin, tap a highlighted square. The touch targets are sized for a thumb rather than a cursor.
Players	One or two people on the same device. Nothing here plays over the internet.

Strategy

Compulsory capture is the whole game. It lets you steer your opponent: put a coin where they must take it and you know exactly which square their coin will land on, and whether you can jump it from there. Almost every good sequence starts as a deliberate offer — one coin for two, or one coin to prise open a line toward the back row. Counting two moves deep is usually enough; counting one never is, because a move that looks safe often has exactly one legal reply and that reply can lose a chain of three.

Because the crown is so modest, the race to the far row is worth less than it looks. Promotion buys you the ability to go backwards, useful for defending and for cleaning up stragglers, but it is still a one-square piece. Holding your own back row intact is often the better investment: with those squares occupied the opponent has nowhere to promote.

The computer plays differently at each setting rather than just faster. Easy grabs the biggest immediate capture, otherwise pushes forward, and throws away a quarter of its moves at random — build a two-move trap and it walks in. Normal looks four moves ahead with a little deliberate noise. Hard searches as deep as its thinking time allows and will find chains you have not seen, so keep the position closed against it and watch the quiet-move counter, because a one-coin lead you cannot convert is only a draw.

Mistakes that cost you the game

Racing for the crown. Promotion ends your turn, and often costs two coins for a piece that still moves one square.
Emptying your back row early, which gives every surviving enemy coin a promotion square to aim at.
Capturing without checking the recapture — it was compulsory, so your opponent already knew you had no choice.
Grinding a one-coin lead. Sixty moves without a capture is a draw no matter who is ahead.

Tips

Advance as a connected block, so anything taken is immediately recaptured.
Scan the whole board before moving — the forced-capture rule applies to every coin you own.
Edge squares cannot be jumped from one side, so park coins you want to keep there.
Play both sides; fives move up the board and tens move down, and the openings feel different.
Against Hard, prefer moves that leave fewer captures available. Its edge grows with the number of forcing lines.