This is the normal-mode walkthrough for Fourbyfourian Quarryin'. It looks to show the simplest ways through normal mode, elimnating discussion of any hard-mode puzzles, in case you want to revisit later. For just the moves, consult the superbrief walkthrough.

Here are some initial pointers as well as conventions for the walkthrough.

For each area, you need to stalemate the enemy king (corner him without a legal move, but he is not attacked) and then checkmate him (attack him so he has no legal moves). However, in cases where a stalemate puzzle would be identical or redundant, the game skips over it and gives you credit for puzzles you've already solved.

A key thing to note is that your king needs to do a lot of the work in every quest. It's more powerful than the bishop and knight, since it can potentially restrict three of his counterpart's squares, while the bishop and knight can only restrict two.

Your pieces are in capital letters. Your enemy's are in small letters. K = king, B = bishop, N = knight.

Note that there are multiple solutions, rotating the board or flipping them. I went with the upper left corner for the sake of consistency, but everything should work.

Also note that this walkthrough uses abbreviations a lot, since the game allows them. The game parser will be able to disambiguate most of the time. It favors reserved pieces over placed ones over irrelevant ones and allies over enemies and traitors. Therefore, you may just find some shortcuts easier: n is knight, b is bishop, k is king. E is enemy and f is friendly, but you can also use the colors. Yellow and purple are randomly chosen for the first for quests--there are two of each--but enemies are always grey. So you can say yb or by or y b or b y for, say the yellow bishop, or pn or np or fn or nf for the purple knight. For the kings, no abbreviation is needed, since the enemy king must be placed last.

You can even risk one-letter abbreviations to save keystrokes. FQ tries to guess what you mean. For instance, c b or p b both place your bishop, as it takes priority over the enemy bishop, and when you have two bishops, the game just picks randomly. You can even use just c or p to call or place the final piece (always the Fourbyfourian King) or second-final piece (whoever's not the Fourbyfourian King).

Fourbyfourian Quarryin' is divided into seven quest zones: four where you have an enemy ally and three where you have two allies. The Fourbyfourias are arranged so there are always bishop allies in each southern conquest and knight allies in each eastern conquest.

+-----------+---+
|           | N |
|           |4b4|
|           |   |
|           +---+
|           | NE|
|           |4b4|
|           |   |
|           +---+
|           | E |
|           |4b4|
|           |   |
+---+---+---+---+
| W | SW| S | SE|
|4b4|4b4|4b4|4b4|
|   |   |   |   |
+---+---+---+---+

Some of these solutions will be rejected on hard mode. So if you play hard mode after this, be aware there is a learning curve.

First, the stalemates. Note you only have to perform each stalemate below once, since your allies in the north/northeast and west/southwest are equivalent. Once you stalemate, you'll need to perform a checkmate next.

======================================== WEST/SOUTHWEST STALEMATES (king and knight vs. king):

The idea here is that you need to trap the enemy king without attacking him. If he is in the corner, your minor piece can take one square, and your king can take the other two.

This is not the only solution. There are rotations and mirrors, and the knight has two squares, and your king can be in one of two squares as well. But this is the general idea.

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | | |N| | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 | | |K| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

place n/s/place k/a1/place k

======================================== NORTH/NORTHEAST STALEMATES (king and bishop vs. king):

Similarly to the king-and-knight stalemate, the bishop can guard the square your king can't.

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | |B| | | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 | | |K| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

w/place b/se/place k/a1/place k

You're now given a pass on stalemates for the two areas you didn't visit, because you have identical allies in, say, the north and northeast, and repetition can be boring. So, on to the checkmates. Note that you need to make sure the traitorous piece is not attacking your king in your solution. There are no potential surprises with the knights, so let's tackle them first.

You may note that the king in the corner only has three squares to move to. Elsewhere he has at least five. So you want to put him there and then leave no escape squares. Your king can guard two squares, but your knight can't guard any if it is giving check. That means the bishop has to block a square. If the bishop is next to the king, that eliminates one square where the knight gives check. With the knight placed, there's only one square for your king that adequately blocks the opponent's king.

Now ahead are checkmates that would never happen in practical play unless a player wanted to lose deliberately. We present the knight mates first, then the bishop mates, which are a bit trickier.

======================================== WEST (knight vs. knight):

You can use process of elimination for this. The king in the corner has three potential flight squares. Your king can guard two. The knight must give check and can't guard any. So the enemy knight has to block one square. But when it does, it makes one of the squares for your king impossible. Since that square is a knight's move away, you need your knight on the other square.

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | |N| | | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 |n| |K| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

s/place k/nw/place n/sw/place n/s/place k

======================================== SOUTHWEST (knight vs. bishop):

You can again use process of elimination for this, though in this case, the bishop restricts where you can place the knight.

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | | | | | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 |b| |N| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| |K| | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

s/place n/s/place k/a2/place b/s/place k

======================================== NORTH (bishop vs. bishop):

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | | |B| | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 |b| |K| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

As before, you need to give check, and while the bishop can guard one flight square, it leaves two squares your king can't guard both of. So you still need help from the opposing bishop. Here, your king has a choice of two squares, since the bishop can't check it, and your bishop has a choice of four squares to give mate.

Note that if there is an ambiguity, you will place your allies first, so your yellow or purple bishop drops with "place b," after which you then place the grey bishop with "place b." This saves a few keystrokes.

place b/s/place k/a2/place b/s/place k

======================================== NORTHEAST (bishop vs. knight):

First, a detour to something that looks good but doesn't quite work:

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | |B| | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | | | | | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 |n| |K| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

Here, the knight can block. Similarly, if the bishop is in the center, the knight can just take it. The bishop, despite being a ranged piece, needs to be kitty-corner from the enemy king.

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 | | | | | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 |n|B|K| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

s/place k/w/place b/w/place n/s/place k.

Now you need to checkmate with two pieces. I'll put in a spoiler of how to do things at the end, but a semi-spoiler is: the three solutions are all very similar!

Now we move on to where you have two allies. In normal mode, we skip the stalemates, since the solution there is to place one piece anywhere and proceed as with a former stalemate. We can also stick the enemy king in the corner, unlike hard mode. A general spoiler before the walkthrough (in ROT13) is: lbh pna cebprrq nf jvgu gur guerr-cvrpr fgnyrzngrf, ohg guvf gvzr, lbhe frpbaq cvrpr tvirf purpx.

======================================== SOUTH (two knights):

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 |K|N|N| | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 | | | | | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

place n/w/place n/w/place k/a1/place k

======================================== EAST (two bishops):

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 |K| |B| | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 | | |B| | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

place b/s/place b/a3/place k/a5/place k

======================================== SOUTHEAST (bishop and knight):

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 |N|K|B| | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 | | | | | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

place b/w/place k/w/place n/a5/place k

This one is a bit different, as the kings are a knight's move away. But it provides the same routine with place, W, place, W, place, a1, place.

An alternate solution, since this is the final puzzle, is as follows:

   a b c d e
  +-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | 5
  +-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | 4
  +-+-+-+-+-+
3 |K|N| | | | 3
  +-+-+-+-+-+
2 |B| | | | | 2
  +-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| | | | | 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+
   a b c d e

In this case, w/place n/w/place k/n/place b/n/place k

Congratulations! You have won on normal mode!

