An online revision of the classic game of Chess. The idea came from a thread posted to Reddit that parodied the balance of a video game. However, the rules were so intriguing that I was interested in bringing it to life.
THIS IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS Roadmap is included in its own section below
Ensure you have Docker Desktop installed and opened.
(Database setup instructions to be added later...)
To run locally open your terminal, navigate to the root directory of the project, and run
docker build . -t league-of-chess && docker run -p 80:80 -p 8080:8080 league-of-chess
You can access the game at 0.0.0.0:80 in your browser.
To run unit tests navigate to root directory of folder and run the following in your terminal
% python3 -m venv env
% source env/bin/activate
% pip install -r backend/requirements.txt
% PYTHONPATH="$PWD/backend" pytest
Use PYTHONPATH="$PWD/backend" pytest -o log_cli=true if you need to debug.
There are quite a few changes here that will dramatically alter gameplay, especially large buffs to Bishops and Queens as well as some nerf for Knights and Rooks.
To speed up games, the behavior of pawns where altered. Pawns often determine the structure of a game.
- If your average piece value is at least 2 points higher than your opponent's, your pawns become more effective against enemy pawns. Their capture range extends to directly in front of them as opposed to diagonals, but only when capturing other pawns.
- If your average piece value is at least 3 points higher than your opponent's, your pawns become more effective defending against enemy pawns. They can no longer be captured by enemy pawns.
The ponies of the board were a bit strong, especially in the early game. This change brings them more in line with other units by removing their ability to ignore unit collision and will allow other pieces more counterplay against Knights.
- No longer can jump over other units
As long range marksmen, bishops excel at dealing damage from long ranges, but are easily flanked and picked off by other units. This change will more clearly define these strengths at a distance and weaknesses in close combat.
- Bishops' movement and capture actions Energize them, building up to 100 stacks. Upon reaching full stacks, the Bishop's next capture action can capture other pieces by landing on any square diagonally adjacent to the opponent's piece.
- Bishops can now be captured by landing on any square adjacent to it, even those not on diagonals.
- Additionally, if a Bishop is threatening to capture a piece, at the end of the Bishop's turn the opposing piece gets a stack of a debuff. On the third hit of the debuff, the Bishop may immediately capture the enemy piece.
Rooks have long abused their ability to control an entire file, or row of squares, and dominate the flow of the board. All pieces control over files are being toned down, but it was decided to nerf the powers of Rooks regardless just for good measure. The mid game power of Rooks was too high for a piece meant to shine late game. The changes below reflect both of these, and will separate the good Rooks from the great ones.
- Rooks movement and capture range now scales with game length. It begins at 3 and gains 1 maximum movement and capture range every 5 turns after the 10th turn of the game.
Queens have long been a strong piece and because of the dynamic gameplay they offer they're being buffed.
- If a Queen moves but does not capture an enemy piece, it stuns all enemy pieces adjacent to it for 1 turn.
- Additionally, Queens now reset on kills and assists. If a Queen captures a piece and is not in danger of being capture herself afterward, she gains the ability to move or capture again. Assists are defined as being able to capture a piece, but allowing another unit to last hit it instead.
We felt Kings were not making a big enough impact and we boring and uninteresting to play, so we are adding minigames to them.
- Every 10 turns, a Sword in the Stone appears on a random location on the map. The King can pick up the sword and prove himself as the rightful ruler of the throne. Upon picking up the sword, he gets the Divine Right buff, which allows him to prevent 1 instance of check or checkmate.
- Additionally, Kings now benefit from his teammates killing enemy units. For every enemy unit that is captured that is not captured by the King, the King gets +1 gold. The King can use his gold to purchase additional units upon visiting his base (starting square), with an exchange rate of 2 gold per 1 point value of the piece being bought. However, Queens cannot be bought in this way.
As mentioned previously with the Rook nerfs, pieces' abilities to monopolize control over a file are being toned down. Hopefully this will make for more interesting games.
- Pieces moving down a file cannot move past the center unless they are already on the center. The center is defined as the 4x4 square in the center of the board, enclosed between c3, c6, f3, and f6.
For millennia White side players have had the advantage in winrate over their Black side counterparts. To maintain game balance slight adjustments are being made to give Black players a better competitive chance.
- Black players now start the game with a pawn on d6 instead of d7.
As part of an attempt to quicken the pace of games, a few neutral objectives are being added to the board so that players are more inclined to break mid game gridlocks.
These objectives take the form of neutral pieces that can be captured. This occurs by bringing a piece's hitpoint to 0. Moving a unit adjacent or on top of the neutral piece removes 1 hitpoint. However, pieces that spend more than 1 turn adjacent or on top of a neutral piece are immediately destroyed.
If a neutral monster goes 3 turns without losing health, it is instantly healed to full health.
Buffs granted by capturing neutral pieces are given to the player who reduces its health to 0.
Dragon: 5 hp
Every 10 turns, the Dragon spawns on the h4 square. Capturing dragon grants a stacking buff.
- 1 stack - Pawns gain +1 movement
- 2 stacks - All pieces deal +1 bonus damage to neutral pieces
- 3 stacks - Pieces ignore unit collision with ally pawns
- 4 stacks - Pieces ignore unit collision with ally units
- 5 stacks - Pieces can capture enemy units by occupying an adjacent square. Only 1 unit per turn can be captured still, and in cases where multiple units can be captured in this way, it is up to the opponent's choice which to lose. This buff lasts 3 turns.
Board Herald: 5 hp
Every 10 turns, spawns on the a5 square. Grants a buff only to the piece who captured it. Pawns adjacent to the piece can capture other pawns and pieces 1 square in front of them.
Baron Nashor: 10 hp
Spawns on the a5 square every 15 turns after the 20th turn. Grants a buff to all pawns. All ally pawns can capture other pawns and pieces 1 square in front of them. Additionally they cannot be captured by other pawns. If enemy pawns currently are immune to your pawns, Baron buff negates this for the duration of the buff.
- Original concept by /u/Zaaptastic on /r/leagueoflegends
- Piece assets by Dani Maccari - https://dani-maccari.itch.io/
- Dragon asset by kukuchangmin - https://www.deviantart.com/kukuchangmin
- Board Herald asset by u/Hamzilla15 on /r/leagueoflegends - https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/6qvj71/did_some_pixel_art_of_baron_nashor_for_the_pixel/
- Baron Nashor asset by ThumbsDown - https://thumbz-down.tumblr.com/post/122327767691/baron-nashor-from-league-of-legends-i-did-a-while
- Title Font by Yuji Oshimoto - http://www.o4.jp.org
- Victory/Defeat Text by /u/gmedley - https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/4qm2rf/oc_3d_victorydefeat_text/
- board ✅
- rudimentary GameStateContext to be built further upon ✅
- white and black players ✅
- neutral monsters ✅
- captured pieces ✅
- piece status effects ✅
- health points for neutral monsters
- sword in stone buff ✅
- rules on click ✅
- pixel font ✅
- ensure that pieces + monsters can be on same square ✅
- win + loss screens ✅
- checkmate protection status effect ✅
- shop (with light/normal green square for shop square) ✅
- rename game to League of Chess
- change favicon and website/tab title
- create a screen directing users to refresh or try again later when POST request fails
- shop rework
- pawn exchange
- give player option to switch between chess sprites and league sprites (make league sprites default (with button [chess piece] <-> [league character]))
- MongoDB database ✅
- fastAPI ✅
- POST game (creates gameState object, along with other game oriented information as seen in GameStateContext.js) ✅
- GET game ✅
- DELETE game ✅
- PUT game (only an API endpoint that allows for updates to gamestate object) ✅
- hook up endpoints to backend (at this stage enemy pieces incapable of moving) ✅
- expand PUT game with game logic, MUST BE DEVELOPED WITH pytest unit tests
- getPossibleMoves() (ignore buff logic for now)
- getPossibleMovesForPawn() ✅
- getPossibleMovesForKnignt() ✅
- getPossibleMovesForBishop() ✅
- getPossibleMovesForRook() ✅
- getPossibleMovesForQueen() ✅
- getPossibleMovesForKing() - to determine check and checkmate will possibly involve looping through every enemy piece's getPossibleMoves()
- handle possibility that a piece can move to a square containing a neutral monster and another piece (where it captures the other piece and damages the neutral monster)
- expand getPossibleMoves() to be able to dynamically take into consideration neutral monster buffs
- clean up PUT game endpoint for easier readibility and maintainability
- getPossibleMoves() (ignore buff logic for now)
- Enhance instructions with local database setup
- AI - https://www.chessprogramming.org/Evaluation#Publications
- rudimentary EASY enemy AI (chooses random moves from possible moves)
- ADVANCED enemy AI that plays as well as possible
- MEDIUM enemy AI
- Restructure project for deployment ✅
- Dockerize project with Dockerfile ✅
- Add database setup to instructions in README
- Un-nest the code (extraction and inversion) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFRhGnuXG-4&t=40s
- Clean up and refactor code
- Linting
- Proofread and finalize README
- Create a Kubernetes deployment script and a configuration file
- Deploy
- Music (looping track with gameplay triggers) - something like https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtKyXtBo8Qm/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
- "auto dark mode for web contents" experimental chrome feature (chrome://flags) messes up the color scheme