Game Initiation: Effortlessly initiate a new game and conveniently share the generated ID.
Game Participation: Smoothly join a game by connecting to the one corresponding with its unique ID.
Local Gameplay: Experiment with strategies and engage in a friendly match directly from a single device.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

nodejs

Debian/Ubuntu:
```
sudo apt install nodejs
```
npm

Debian/Ubuntu:
```
sudo apt install npm
```

Installation

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/CozmaRares/chess.git
cd chess

Install the dependencies

npm install
cd client
npm install
cd ..

Start the development server
```
npm run dev
```
Run test suite for the chess engine
```
npm run test
```
Build for production
```
npm run build
```

Deployment

The application is hosted on AWS, with Route 53 directing traffic to an EC2 instance. Within the EC2 instance, an nginx server is configured to route incoming HTTPS traffic from port 443 to the specific port where the application server is listening, ensuring secure communication.

NOTE: deployment is no longer available

Reflection

The goal of the project was to build a fully functional chess server and to familiarize myself with the technologies used during the development process.

Originally I set out to include more gamemodes, such as 4 player chess or use a 10x10 board instead of the standard 8x8. The limiting factor proved to be my naive implementation of the chess engine that does not support more than two players and a bigger than 8x8 board, not without major refactoring.

The most challenging part was the design of the chess engine itself, mostly generating the moves and synchronizing the associated FEN string with the posision of the pieces on the board.

During the project, I encountered some unforeseen obstacles, including:

CSS struggled to manage overflowing height of the gameplay history, and had to hack my way through with a little JavaScript.
Browsers need to connect securely to the game server. Initially, I assumed ACM certificate generation and Route 53 configuration were sufficient. However, I explored a more complex route involving a load balancer before ultimately relying on nginx.

The project's development relies on a range of technologies. AWS provides a dependable infrastructure. TypeScript ensures a more error-resistant development process. React facilitates the creation of dynamic user interfaces, with React Router simplifying application routing, while TailwindCSS enables swift UI styling. Vite minimizes the initial frontend setup. On the backend, Express offers a robust HTTP framework, while Socket.IO manages web socket connections. Additionally, Vitest serves as a rapid testing tool that supports TypeScript out of the box.

Lastly, I want to point out the features that need to be improved if I ever decide to develop a second version of this project:

a more efficient move generation engine
a more generalized engine that supports additional game modes
a richer user interface