MosChess (chess engine created in a programming language for children)
MosChess - (is not just a chess program) is a revolutionary project.Introduction
Yo! I am so glad that you visited my first blog on lichess.org. My name is David and here I would like to tell you about one very amazing thing that I worked on for six months, day after day, tirelessly - MosChess.
MosChess - (is not just a chess program) is a revolutionary project created in Scratch (a block-based programming language designed to teach programming to children). In MosChess you can play online with each other, fight with bots and watch other people play. Now it may seem to you that MosChess is just another chess engine, of which there are a lot at the moment. But don’t rush to conclusions, let’s take a closer look at this project.
What is Scratch?
Scratch is one of the simplest programming languages that was created specifically to teach children the basics of programming. Here the code must be assembled from ready-made primitive blocks. But despite this, creating serious projects in Scratch is very difficult. Firstly, this is due to the fact that there are very few blocks, so you have to create auxiliary structures from the existing primitive blocks, for example, sorting a list, text engines (yes, in Scratch you can’t even write text using the required font). The creation of such auxiliary structures takes a lot of time and effort. Secondly, the Scratch programming language is very slow (I think this is its main disadvantage). And thirdly, Scratch does not support cookies, i.e. all game progress will not be saved locally on your computer, and creating your own server is unrealistic.
Why did I decide to create MosChess?
Many people believe that Scratch is intended for children to learn programming. But, in my opinion, Scratch does not have any specific audience; it can be suitable for both a 7-year-old child and a 50-year-old man. My goal is to show that Scratch is a very powerful thing that everyone should pay attention to, MosChess is proof of this.
More about MosChess
As I wrote above, Scratch does not support cookies, so each time before closing the program you need to copy and save the special code on your computer manually. You can read more about this in the help inside the program.
Advantages of MosChess over other chess engines
Do you know such chess variants as Crazyhouse, Three-check, Racing Kings, etc.? This chess is very interesting to play in your free time, relax and get in a good mood. In MosChess I created a new version of chess - Life Chess, thanks to which you can greatly improve your skills, for example, before serious competitions in ordinary chess. The essence of Life Chess is that players do not see their opponent’s pieces (round pieces are displayed instead), and the placement of pieces initially occurs according to the Chess960 principle (randomly). Thus, these chess are very reminiscent of a real war, where commanders know the location of their troops, but know nothing about the enemy troops, they can only guess by their behavior.
Another advantage of MosChess is that here you can express your emotions in the form of emoticons through figures. As you know, here at lichess.org you can communicate with your opponent through a special chat. But the policy of the Scratch site (where I published my project) prohibits creating chats, so I had to create this feature, which I liked so much that I would really like lichess.org to add it to itself.
MosChess bots
MosChess has its own four bots of different difficulty levels, which were also created from scratch by me. Unfortunately, the strongest of them may seem very weak to you, since Scratch is a very slow programming language (as I wrote about above), which is why I had to optimize the bot code.
Screenshots
View MosChess
MosChess you can watch or download from my website: https://dav.mos5.ru/moschess.html
Video review of MosChess (in Russian)
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this blog and don't regret wasting your precious time. I would really like to hear your wishes and preferences, and from lichess.org - the addition of emoticons, thanks to which you can express your emotions through figures. Thank you very much! :P