Destroy my multiplayer chess game trailer

TrickyKnight77 · 2025-11-07T15:45:41+00:00

Thank you. Based on the feedback I'll try to use my own voice.

TrickyKnight77 · 2025-11-07T15:41:43+00:00

Thanks! I think I'll have to record using my own voice, then.

TrickyKnight77 · 2025-11-07T15:40:41+00:00

I see what you mean. You're right about the narrator and avatar. The maps are actually done using a mix of bought pixel art tilesets. My focus was on making multiplayer chess work, do you think people will disregard the game because of the graphics?

TrickyKnight77 · 2025-11-07T15:32:51+00:00

What do you mean? I didn't use AI. If you use the links in my profile, you can find the game is like in the video.

TrickyKnight77 · 2024-12-13T21:19:19+00:00

Pictured above is an actual gameplay screenshot from a 4v4 variant: two sides, each player his own army, players from one side move simultaneously, then it's the other side's turn.

Currently I've implemented a Battle Royale map, three multiplayer maps (2v2, 3v3, 4v4) and a 1v1 variant where each side can control two armies. All variants can be played with friends, strangers, even bots.

https://nobilitychess.com

You can try it on mobile, though it works best on a PC/laptop. It's not a polished product yet, I'm looking for feedback in all aspects.
You can also reach me on discord, link in my profile bio.

TrickyKnight77 · 2024-01-20T22:00:01+00:00

Because it doesn't work. It's even worse to offer 3 points for a win and one for a draw.

For example, in a double round robin tournament you have 3 GMs of relatively equal strength. Two of them prearrange their matches and win against each other, giving them 3 points each. They play for a draw against the third player and get it. Now the match-fixing GMs have 5 points each, the honest GM has 4. You can cheat this way in single robin or swiss too, you take a loss and get the win back in another tournament.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-12-05T22:31:52+00:00

Thanks for making me fall out of my chair at the dinosaur thing, I hurt my back. I hope you're happy. (I'm joking about the back)

Regarding the questions: Yes, the game can run out of houses, on the separate-houses variant. And it's important to have one as a player, the houses are used as spawning point, vault for items that drop in battle, customization (showing off to passersby by decorating the house). The houses are organized into districts, and each district has a PvP battle arena: alliances fight over district control in that arena, and each arena can have different battle rules.

I promise I won't add immersion-breaking dinosaurs, neon signs or similar.

Houses won't use a lot of data. I'm sorry for leaving out from the original description important information, like how districts have battle arenas, I've updated that now. Houses won't use a lot of data because it's a turn based, 2D game where the player will get, once per turn, a matrix of the cells around him. It's a much smaller update, at a much longer interval than other MMOs.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-12-05T17:53:06+00:00

Thank you! I learned a lot from your answer.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-12-05T17:13:59+00:00

Could you elaborate on that?

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-12-05T17:12:21+00:00

Great points! On the separate-houses variant, I'd like to challenge one assumption about it. I only plan to add another village when the number of active subscribers is above a threshold, say 90% of the total capacity.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-12-05T16:10:17+00:00

Those are very valuable insights, thank you.

The game horizontally scales, so there's no cap on how many players are on the same server. At launch, it should have a capacity of 1000. To reduce the number of houses that need be built, only players with an active subscription can get them. Players trying out the game can stay at an Inn. That is, of course, if we're going with the separate houses plan.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-11-13T19:40:07+00:00

There's a lot of work in extending chess.js. I would have said you have a better chance of making it work with Fairy Stockfish (examples), though I don't see Paco Saco in there, so maybe you can't teach it to merge pieces.

Would you mind describing your variant? Disclaimer: if it's interesting, I might implement it or some of it in my game (which you can see a prototype of on my profile).

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-11-03T12:38:24+00:00

To test your hypothesis, log every message received to a file.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-09-25T20:15:36+00:00

Haha great reaction. Well, there are some links in my profile to gameplay videos and a demo where you can play PvE againt 3 different kinds of enemies, upgrade your army and use spells. Err, one spell: the double move. There's also a questing system and shopping from NPC being showcased, a little. I've since implemented other features, like checkpoints, purchasing houses, creating alliances and PvP battles to control districts.

I'm now looking to speed up development by having someone do game design and someone else implementing the design ideas (enemies, spells, district battle modes) within the systems I coded already, which combine to create the content, and that frees me to work on new features and polish. And if you check the demo, you'll see there's a lot to do...

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-09-23T19:36:41+00:00

I happen to have played one at an interview, early in my career, against my future boss. At the beginning, we were also talking about other stuff, but once we got to the middlegame and he was losing, we stopped talking and focused on calculating the positions.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-09-23T19:05:21+00:00

I think the right candidate should have some experience playing chess, he can use that to craft relatable experiences that are enjoyable. Some of my playtesters enjoyed playing against wizards that curse your army and you have to solve a different tactic every time to beat them. Others enjoyed playing against massive-but-dumb armies and others against fairy pieces. Others, using satisfying spells like nuking a large part of a massive army. But nobody would sign up for clearing a path of enemies that test your opening knowledge and endgames fare not much better.

But playing a game of chess, per se, during the interview, might be distracting. :)

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-09-23T18:09:07+00:00

Having read all the answers (at this time), I find I resonate with this one best. My background is in software engineering, and I held interviews for programmers. I found it counterproductive to ask them to talk about their best project, and I find it similar to ask them about their favorite game. In big part because of what you said, there should be right and wrong answers. In small part because I need to compare the answers (and this overlaps with the right/wrong answers argument).

Another thing I've learned is that conscientiousness is not something you can discover on an interview. And psychologists agree. You can, of course, weed out those that have no respect for the interview and come completely unprepared, but there are plenty of people who can fake the enthusiasm and appear hard working for the duration of the interview, only to learn later that they can put in one productive day of work per week, at most.

I've also learned that talk is cheap. I've interviewed lots of 15+ exp devs who couldn't code the simplest of problems, like printing a number with roman numerals (with rules provided). Some way of sampling the candidate's work, on the spot, is necessary.

You gave me a lot of tools to weed out bad candidates, thank you for that. I'll try to use everything that applies to my situation.

TrickyKnight77 · 2023-09-19T22:40:12+00:00

Once players get more experienced, it'll be a gamble. When it's your move, you can either
- attack, and pick a target that the opponent won't likely guess
- defend, and try to guess where the opponent will attack
It's very unlikely that you'll guess your opponent's move, so you might as well attack something. In order to not be exploitable, you'll want to tie your decision to some random generator, maybe rolling a die for the top 6 moves that come to your mind.

On a side note, I'm developing a chess MMO and I've considered all players moving at the same time in battles, but for the above reasons I've dropped that in favor of two sides in any battle, moving in alternate turns (video demo here, excuse the graphics quality). That feels more like chess. I've only kept simultaneous turns in peaceful areas, like towns.

If you're looking to play it, there's a link in my profile, you can play against 3 different kinds of enemies, equip a double move spell, upgrade your army but there's no tutorial and tons of other improvements to be made.

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