Board and setup
Dark Mini Xiangqi uses the Mini Xiangqi board: 7 files by 7 ranks, with files a through g and ranks 1 through 7. Red starts on rank 1, Black starts on rank 7, and Red moves first.
Each side has one general, two chariots, two cannons, two horses, and five soldiers. The back rank is chariot, cannon, horse, general, horse, cannon, chariot. Soldiers start one rank ahead on files a, c, d, e, and g.
Each general is confined to a 3 by 3 palace. There are no advisors, elephants, river, promotions, drops, or reserves.
Piece movement
General: moves one point orthogonally inside its own palace. If the two generals face each other on the same open file, a general may capture the opposing general across that file.
Chariot: moves any distance horizontally or vertically. It cannot jump, and it may capture the first enemy piece it reaches.
Cannon: moves like a chariot when it is not capturing. To capture, it jumps over exactly one intervening piece, called the screen, and lands on the first enemy piece beyond it.
Horse: moves one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally outward, like a xiangqi horse. It cannot move if the adjacent orthogonal leg point is occupied.
Soldier: moves and captures one point forward or sideways from the start of the game. There is no river-crossing rule because soldiers already have sideways movement.
Fog of War
A player sees all of their own pieces, the points their pieces can see, enemy pieces on visible unshrouded points, and shrouded occupancy markers for certain blockers and cannon screens.
A player does not see enemy pieces outside visible points, whether a hidden point is empty, the role of a shrouded blocker, or empty cannon gap points between a screen and target.
The key cannon rule is screen shrouded, target revealed. Empty points before the screen are visible, the screen appears occupied but unidentified, empty points between the screen and target stay fogged, and the capturable target is visible.
Horses follow the same privacy principle. If a horse leg is blocked, the leg point appears occupied but unidentified, and the destinations behind that leg stay hidden.
Winning and draws
The game ends when a general is captured. There is no separate check or checkmate rule, and check warnings are not announced.
A player may move into danger, leave their general exposed, or allow facing generals. This follows Mistboard's Fog of War rule philosophy: the server should not reveal warning information that the visible position may not justify.
If the side to move has no legal move, that side loses by immobilization. Draws are adjudicated from the true position, not either player's view: threefold repetition is an automatic draw, and a no-capture progress clock can also draw the game.
Play status
Dark Mini Xiangqi is an experimental launch candidate, not a public Mistboard game mode yet. The intended game spec id is dark-mini-xiangqi.
The conservative path is rules and fog tests first, a hidden local play lab second, live runtime only after privacy tests pass, and public launch only after mobile play, invite/share, and postgame behavior are ready.