A democratized take on the classical game of chess
I recently read about Garry Kasparov and his famous game of chess that was played over the Internet
My skills in chess are laughable. But my dedication to act out my most useless and asinine of programming ideas are not much so. And so, when I read this story, I took great inspiration.
DChess is structured into two distinct parts: core and net
The core component of DChess houses the chess logic of DChess. It stores the code that manages the movements of units, as well as the current board information.
The net component of DChess is the network code that allows for multiple players of the same team to vote on a move. It's split further into subcomponents of server and client.
The client subcomponent contains client-side network code, as well as the client's graphical user interface. The server subcomponent contains the server-side network code. There's nothing stopping anyone from hosting their own DChess server.
Currently, a DChess server is hosted on the IP 35.163.164.101 at port 9999.
It's the exact same rules as chess, but instead of a classical one-vs-one scenario, a team of multiple players control a team on the chess board.
To move a unit per turn, players on each team must vote on a move for a unit. The move that gets the most votes is the move that will be implemented at the end of the turn. If there's a ties, then no move is made for that turn.
There's a time limit for vote submissions for the current voting team (minimum of 15 seconds). If a plurality vote isn't reached by the end of this time limit, no move is made for that turn. If no vote has been received by the end of the limit, then no move will be implemented.
Game sessions can also be setup to have a break in-between turns, acting as a moment for teams to strategize and reflect on life choices.
DChess would not be possible without Netty 4.1 and would not be remotely playable without JUnit 4 - as well as their respective dependencies.
DChess requires a Java Runtime Environment of 1.8. The client installer installs the DChess client with a compliant JDK so this requirement is already taken care of.
Binaries are available for the DChess client (v1.0). Every future version will have a corresponding installer, posted as a release for the above respository.
Current roadmap for DChess:
- Core Development - Currently, the chess logic in
corecan only check for the win condition: killing of the enemy king. But, it cannot detect checks, checkmates, and ties.- Plan : Use an established Chess API instead of developing my own.
- More Than Chess - The name implies that the game is only democratizing chess, but the same can easily be done with other classics like checkers.
- Plan : Allow for players to develop their own custom games, in the form of mods.
- Beyond Plurality - The only supported mode of voting is by plurality (First Past the Post), but there are so many interesting voting methods!
- Plan : Implement a small set of voting systems for users to choose from, as well as allowing custom voting systems.
- Interactable Server - The server currently doesn't have much ability for interaction - other than responding to client requests and sending signals.
- Plan : Allow for server hosts to input server side commands to better manage said servers. Also, allow for more intricate record keeping and statistics for analysis.
The chess pieces used in the client GUI is sourced from CBurnett's work on chess pieces, which can be see here.
DChess is maintained and created by Jose Guaro.
If you have any concerns regarding DChess or would just like to reach out, feel free to contact me at anothertypemonkey@gmail.com.