Villager Checkers

That Master-level librarian drives a hard bargain. Can they see a two-for-one shot coming?

Open any villager's trade screen and hit Play Checkers. A full board opens right there - no items, no commands, no setup. You play red and move first.

How strong are they?

A villager's trading level sets its checkers strength - and each level thinks in a genuinely different way, not just deeper:

Villager level	Checkers strength
Novice	Walks into forced-capture traps
Apprentice	Sees the traps, misses the shots
Journeyman	Sets and finds 2-for-1 shots
Expert	Understands the endgame - takes the opposition
Master	Converts won endings; doesn't blunder

Because capture is compulsory, checkers is a game of shots - offering a piece so the forced recapture wins more back. The ladder is built on exactly that: how far into a forced chain the villager can see.

How to play

Click a piece, then click one of its highlighted squares.
Capture is compulsory. The pieces that can take are outlined; clicking anything else flashes red.
Multi-jumps are entered one hop at a time; a chain with no branch plays itself. Right-click cancels.
Full American/English draughts rules, including a man crowned mid-jump stops there.
Having no legal move loses. Draws come from the 40-move quiet rule and threefold repetition.
Resign with the button or close the board. Walking >16 blocks away, the villager dying, or disconnecting abandons the game.
No stakes, no rewards - just for fun.

Under the hood

From-scratch pure-Java engine; move generation verified against published perft counts.
Negamax + alpha-beta + iterative deepening with a per-level capture horizon.
Server-authoritative; the engine thinks on a background thread.
Pieces are drawn procedurally - no sprite sheet, crisp at any size.

Compatibility

Plays nicely with the other Villager Games mods - the trade-screen buttons stack instead of overlapping. Requires Fabric API.

Requirements

Minecraft 26.2
Fabric Loader 0.19.3+ and Fabric API
Java 25
Install on both client and server (works in singleplayer out of the box)