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It's been awhile, so welcome to my series if you haven't seen it before!

Number Of Moves: 15

Checkmater: Black

Given Game:

  1. ? ?

  2. ? ?

  3. ? ?

  4. ? ?

  5. ? fxe3

  6. ? ?

  7. ? ?

  8. ? ?

  9. ? dxe4

  10. ? dxe6

  11. ? ?

  12. ? ?

  13. ? fxe5

  14. ? ?

  15. ? fxe2#

Cryptic Clue: Death must move to be killed.

task: To use retrograde analysis and give an answer with all of the question marked moves solved, along with reasons for each move and all of the cryptic clues. A simple PGN post shall suffice. A link is optional.

Cryptic Clue #2-For @Mr.Pie! ;D: The number six is important for the final position.

To all solvers out there: Have some fun solving!

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    $\begingroup$ Are you sure there is a unique solution? Because that's a lot of moves missing (which, incidentally, makes this very difficult — but fun :P) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Jul 8, 2019 at 15:52
  • $\begingroup$ WIth your cryptic clue 2 I suspect you tried to force a special pattern but didn't succeed. Maybe you need one more specification to ensure immobility of those units you want to be immobile. Yet by only giving Black moves it will be hard to force Pe7 to stay on place. $\endgroup$
    – Evargalo
    Jul 9, 2019 at 16:10
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    $\begingroup$ @RewanDemontay am I missing something, is there something wrong with Evargalo's solution? $\endgroup$
    – sunfishho
    Jul 12, 2019 at 3:42
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    $\begingroup$ There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. Evargalo did say that I need to add in more things to my make my intended solution work. I was going to do that but then Shinjo came and effectivly found that solution. Evargalo, at least how I see it, sort of admitted that their solution is wrong insofar that they think it is not right. And by giving me a chance to change my puzzle in an answer sort of makes it a fluid answer that will soon be outdated ans thus not acceptable in a sense. I half-expect Rubio, Gareth McCaughan, and/or Deusivo to show up now and comment on my thoughts now. $\endgroup$
    – Rewan Demontay
    Jul 12, 2019 at 3:46
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    $\begingroup$ Is Shinjo's solution exactly the one you were expecting? I am a bit surprised if among the hundreds, probably thousands of possible answers he picked exactly the one. Also, how does this final position relate to the number six? Anyway, I still think that when you will create another puzzle of this kind, you should include enough constraints to make the solution unique. $\endgroup$
    – Evargalo
    Jul 13, 2019 at 14:28

4 Answers 4

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I think I found it:

1.d4 f5
2. Bg5 f4
3. Bf6 g5
4. e3 exf6
5. Bc4 fxe3
6. Nc3 c6
7. d5 cxd5
8. Ne4 g4
9. Nf3 dxe4
10. Be6 dxe6
11. Ne5 Qd6
12. Kf1 Qd2
13. Qe2 fxe5
14. f3 gxf3
15. Rg1 fxe2#
Apronus PGN Viewer

Reason:

The hardest part was having the King mated on fxe2 move. I tried several way to approach and the shortest one to achieve was by using Queen to stop several boxes while guarding the pawn. The other one was using e7 pawn to move onward rather than using sides pawn for fxe2 because we can't waste any extra moves to achieve the end result.

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    $\begingroup$ @RewanDemontay updated with reasoning. $\endgroup$
    – Shinjo
    Jul 12, 2019 at 4:35
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Partial Answer

I have something like this:

First attempt

As we can see, the fxe3 move for example has been made. The final position is this with the eleventh move in the above picture highlighted in yellow:

First attempt

I know I stuffed up because of the last move, but I think the king might be in the right position for that. Not too sure, though, but at least it was a fun puzzle :)

Will work on this tomorrow. Leaving this answer here for inspiration :D

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    $\begingroup$ wow... +1 to you! $\endgroup$
    – Omega Krypton
    Jul 8, 2019 at 17:04
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    $\begingroup$ um... 2 mins, 3 upvotes!?? nice! $\endgroup$
    – Omega Krypton
    Jul 8, 2019 at 17:04
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    $\begingroup$ @OmegaKrypton thanks! (and for the upvote) :) edit: would you listen to Vivaldi's Summer to try and fall asleep? I am tired, but I have also wanted to listen to this xD $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Jul 8, 2019 at 17:14
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    $\begingroup$ hmm... shouldnt this be in chat? feel free to chat with me there. here is mainly for discussions bout puzzles ;) but nvm, i'll try :) $\endgroup$
    – Omega Krypton
    Jul 8, 2019 at 17:17
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One solution among many possibilities. Actually, the last three moves are not needed in that example:

animated game

The moves:

1. d4 e5 2. f4 g5 3. dxe5 gxf4 4. Qd5 c6 5. e3 fxe3 6. Nc3 Qh4+ 7. Kd1 cxd5 8. Bc4 f6 9. Ne4 dxe4 10. Be6 dxe6 11. Nf3 Qf2 12. Re1 exf3 13. Re2 fxe5 14. a3 a6 15. a4 fxe2#

Your intention must have been something else, you may need to add more constraints in the puzzle.

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    $\begingroup$ I requested edit with a spoiler fix. It is a bug in this site where if you use the spoiler tag and then press enter (new line) the spoiler becomes visible. So you must use the <br/> tag for any line break $\endgroup$
    – shoopi
    Jul 9, 2019 at 18:29
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    $\begingroup$ @shoopi It's not "a bug", it's just how spoilers work. See How to format text inside spoilers? for some tips on how you can do this sort of thing without resorting to embedded HTML tags. $\endgroup$
    – Rubio ♦
    Jul 11, 2019 at 5:51
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks Rubio. Like the guy in the answer you linked to says, It's a little quirky. Regardless, that's good to know - but this has got to be added here so people actually know about it. $\endgroup$
    – shoopi
    Jul 11, 2019 at 10:59
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Partial solution:

I need to figure out how to get a pawn to the f-file. So close and yet so far...

My attempt:

Still need to get my g pawn to take on f5, can't seem to find a way yet.

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  • $\begingroup$ Am I anywhere close? $\endgroup$
    – sunfishho
    Jul 9, 2019 at 6:04

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