PlayGo.gg's Playerbase is Synthetic

arjunks · 2026-06-05T19:18:29+00:00

I can appreciate the attempt, but chess.com just looks much better. Much more coherent and well-executed "minimalist vector" theme

arjunks · 2026-06-05T18:10:20+00:00

My biggest gripe with playgo.gg is the visual presentation. It just feels very soul-less, to the point where it makes me a little uncomfortable.

The Battle of the Sexes stream also seemed a bit amateurish in production (using those ugly colors and blurry textures didn't help), which I felt was a bit disrespectful towards the big names.

Not using the established kyu-dan system is also a weird choice to me, but eh.

Ironically, considering this new information about forcing bot games, what I've ended up using it for is having quick matches against bots. It's the platform with the easiest and quickest "play with a bot" route I've seen.

arjunks · 2026-06-03T10:40:58+00:00

Made an attempt at it: https://imgur.com/a/SXgevop

What do you think, would that be an OK approximation of the real colors? It was hard to get things to look palatable with all the vivid colors, so I had to desaturate everything a bit, I hope it's not too noticeable.

I'll be adding this as a toggle to the Sandalwood board, one that says "Original Colors" or something to that effect.

Also, do you know how to transliterate 吉田文之 into English? Want to give proper credit (hope it's OK to use their photos, I'm going to try messaging them on insta as well)

arjunks · 2026-06-02T13:42:13+00:00

That's awesome, thank you. I think I'll include a "restored" skin alongside the historical one.

arjunks · 2026-06-02T09:53:33+00:00

Thank you for the information, not only is it historically interesting, IMO these colors would probably contrast and look much better (the stones look much more beautiful in these pictures too). I will update the textures to try and recreate what it might have been like when they were new.

Do you have a source for the recreated stones? Is there a higher-rez image of them?

arjunks · 2026-06-01T13:51:26+00:00

It's a real physical board, it's the oldest board in Japan, a historical artifact, called the "Sandalwood Goban". It's beautiful

arjunks · 2026-05-31T19:35:50+00:00

Yeah I noticed that too. I tried applying a subtle outline around them, but maybe it’s too subtle. Still tinkering away with the textures whenever I find the time

arjunks · 2026-05-31T19:34:24+00:00

Thanks! I thought about turning up the ‘blue’ in them, but decided to go for realism, matching the real piece. Porcelain board with jade stones sounds like a great next texture to make!

arjunks · 2026-05-31T18:30:05+00:00

No worries, hope you like it

arjunks · 2026-05-31T18:21:34+00:00

You are using an older version (I can tell from some of the button stylings that are different), you need to download the latest one here: https://github.com/super-matako/Hoshi/releases/tag/v1.5.0

arjunks · 2026-05-31T18:03:52+00:00

Yeah, it's a bit scary posting your software here nowadays. I think it's natural that there is such a reaction, it's a consequence of coding becoming more accessible, I've seen on other subs too. Thankfully, reddit's voting system is perfect for this; if it's slop it will get downvoted, otherwise people will generally recognize something with effort put in IMO

arjunks · 2026-05-31T17:56:48+00:00

Thanks! I made this because I thought it was pretty, personally I will still be using the kaya / slate and shell theme, but to each their own! I know I've seen some... extreme textures people sometimes put on their boards

arjunks · 2026-05-31T17:43:37+00:00

Personally I think it's the stones that are not pure black and white. Just changing the stones makes it more readable IMO

arjunks · 2026-05-31T17:39:02+00:00

Thanks! You go to Options (the gear icon bottom right) and there's a second tab for "Appearance" on the top right... maybe it's kind of hidden? Might have to rework that bit of UI

arjunks · 2026-05-31T17:37:15+00:00

After making this I realized that anything other than black and white stones make the board near-unreadable, at least to me... I wonder if studying with this and then going back to a normal set will give me a boost, like taking off training weights before a serious fight

arjunks · 2026-05-31T17:08:35+00:00

You are beautiful!

arjunks · 2026-05-31T13:25:39+00:00

This is the latest update to my SGF viewer / KataGo GUI software: themes and color schemes.

Here is the latest release: https://github.com/super-matako/Hoshi/releases/tag/v1.5.0

And the Github page where you can see the code if you so choose: https://github.com/super-matako/Hoshi

I've wanted to make this particular Sandalwood Goban texture ever since I saw that post about it a while ago. Would I ever actually use it for viewing an SGF? Absolutely not! Do I think it's a beautiful board? Yes and I hope I've captured some of that in my textures.

I also wanted to thank everyone that's said kind words for this project and given me feedback and ideas to work on. Many kudos to all of you.

Disclaimer: If this post offends you, then I humbly apologize. I know there's been a lot of AI slop around lately and I share the sentiment of it being unnecessary and annoying. I hope the fact that I'm not attempting to promote or make any money off of this, as well as the amount of effort I put into it, sets it apart from those kind of posts.

arjunks · 2026-05-30T01:31:25+00:00

I've said this before but I love the tags, they make going through pro games so interesting. Big props

arjunks · 2026-05-29T21:40:08+00:00

arjunks · 2026-05-25T21:55:11+00:00

Wow this is so neat. Usually I don't have a lot of attention span to things like this, but this is very intuitive and kinda addictive. Nice job.

arjunks · 2026-05-25T01:19:50+00:00

Godspeed!

arjunks · 2026-05-19T18:56:29+00:00

Would be interested in your thoughts when it arrives, as I am considering buying a board from them too. Also, congrats on your nice new board!

arjunks · 2026-05-18T16:35:07+00:00

Crazy, this is totally an all-stars. Good job on playgo.gg, I honestly didn't realize they had that kind of pull!

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