In this game, the pawns always move one step forward. In chess the fist movements is different. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_(chess)

> Pawn movement: A pawn can move to the square directly in front of itself, if that square is clear. A pawn on its starting rank has the option of moving two squares.

All I see is what appears to be some weirdly colored landscape. There is no text or anything to explain what I am looking at, and there do not appear to be any interactive elements on the page or any time-varying content.

Does the site esquire a plugin or something? If so, the author should at least put something there in HTML to explain what is required.

Just Javascript & recent Firefox/Chrome.

the cards power up the pawns in this game so advancing two squares to speed up the game is unnecessary (it gets hectic pretty quickly)

absolute rubbish