chessU

Multiplayer chess game platform

Try to sign up and play in: https://www.playchessu.com/

• Play chess with other users or ai on 3 different modes
  • ranked: 10 minutes, 30 minutes
  • casual: 10 minutes, 30 minutes, unlimited
  • vs AI:
    • 10 minutes, 30 minutes, unlimited
    • easy, normal, hard

• chessU will match you up with players around your skill level (elo difference within 300)
• chessU will update your elo at the end of every match for subsequent match making
• play ranked to climb the ladder and rank up the leaderboard
• invite friends in casual or queue up for a random opponent of your skill level
• practice against AI

Development Stack

• chess.js and chessboardjsx npm packages are being used
• React.js and Node.js for front end
• Express.js and Node.js for back end
• Socket.io for client-to-server communication
• Heroku for server deployment
• Netlify for webside deployment

Features

Match Making

• Queuing System
  • chessU makes use of in-memory data structure to store queues of different modes
  • upon players queuing up for a match, chessU will push the player into the appropraite queue and when another player of the appropriate elo appears in the queue they will be matched up.

• Match confirm
  • when a match is made between two players, chessU will prompt a confirmation for both of the players involved.
  • only when both players accept the match before the count down running out the players will be loaded into the game
  • other wise players will return to the game option selection form
  • the timer starts with 15 seconds initially

Invitation

• invitation feature is only available for casual mode
• players can enter a username and send an invite to a friend
• invitation can only be sent to users that are registered as friends on the platform
• when a proper username is entered, the sender will wait for the opponent to accept, similar to match confirm

• if the friend is currently in queue or in the middle of accepting a match the invitation will not be sent and the following will display for the sender

• the invitation recipient will be prompted to accept or decline the invitation as a pop up toast at the bottom right corner of their page

• accepting the invitation will redirect both users to the game

vs AI

• our AI game can be started immediately once the game form (time limit selection and difficulty selection) is completed
• the user will be redirected to a game, and can proceed to play as they would.

Game

• Timer
  • on the top side of the game board there are timers that count down as the match begins.
  • each player starts off with the allocated time set when loading up the game
  • when one of the timers runs out, the player with time left will automatically win
• Player information
  • on the left side of the game page players can see both player's information as follows
• Resignation
  • inside the player information block there is a resignation button that both players can click at any time to resign
  • the game will conclude when a player confirms the resign

• Action log
  • on the right side of the board is an action log that keeps track of every mode made by both players
• In-game chat
  • on the bottom right side of the window there is a chat toggle that can be used for a in-game live chat.
  • each players can send any message to each other by either clicking send or pressing enter with text content in the input field

• Board
  • the main board is displayed at the center of the window
  • the appropraite set of pieces will be placed at the bottom side of the row depending on the player's color
  • every move made by a player will be reflected on the opponent's side of the board
• Game Over
  • once a match is concluded, a prompt will appear displaying your elo change post-match and a button that lets you return to the home menu

Profile

• User Information
• the user information displays the username, their rank icon, as well as the profile picture

• users can edit and save their information by pressing the edit button as follows:

• users can also edit their profile pictures by clicing on the camera icon on the bottom right corner of their photo

• User statistics
  • stats tab displays user statistics
  • wins and losses, elos for different game modes, as well as total matches

• Match History
  • history tab displays the user's match history, most recent to the oldest
  • each item displays the user, the opponent, their profile picture, their rank icon, and their elo
  • each item can be green or red depending on the outcome of the match (green for victory and red for defeat)

Leaderboard

• there are 2 leaderboards for each of the ranked game modes (10 minutes and 30 minutes)
• each of these boards will display the rankings from highest elo to lowest elo
• each user item displays their profile picture, rank icon, username, and elo
• if logged in as a user, each user will have buttons that serve community functions (add/delete friend, accept/decline friend request)
• leaderboards can still be viewed if not logged in

Community

• Friends
  • friends tab displays a list of your friends on the platform with a button for removing friend

• Requests
  • requests tab displays a list of pending friend requests you have not responded to with buttons for accepting/declining

• Search
  • search tab allows users to search for any user registered on the platform
  • the search result will show any user that includes the serach term (case insensitive)

Elo rating

elo rating method: https://metinmediamath.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/how-to-calculate-the-elo-rating-including-example/

• Bronze: Between 0 and 1149
• Silver: Between 1150 and 1499
• Majority of Active Player Base
• Gold: Between 1500 and 1849
• Platinum: Between 1850 and 2199
• Diamond: 2200 and 2500
• Master: 2501

Icons

Game Icon (designed by Thomas Lee)