{"author_link":"\/users\/baturinsky","author_name":"Baturinsky","author_uid":"baturinsky","comments":[],"epoch":1570391108,"event":"LD45","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":171245,"likes":5,"metadata":{"p_key":"135370","p_author":"Baturinsky","p_authorkey":"1024819","p_urlkey":"351626","p_title":"So, I just applied LD theme to chess","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD45","p_time":"1570391108","p_likes":"5","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1024819","us_name":"Baturinsky","us_username":"baturinsky","event_start":"1570147200","event_key":"78","event_name":"Ludum Dare 45"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD45","removed_author":false},"_superparent":159347,"_trust":5,"author":24819,"body":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/$170951\n![screenshot.png](\/\/\/raw\/3f0\/6\/z\/261b6.png)\n\nI went with probably the most obvious approach to \"Start with Nothing\" theme.\n\nWhen nothingness is felt the most? When it's ion the place of something you are used to have.\n\nSo, I should take some familiar game or genre where player starts with something, and remove it.\n\nWhat's the most familiar game? Obviously, it's Chess.\n\nSo, just take Chess and remove one or both sides pieces! Then allow adding placing them gradually. \nIt's just that simple.\n\nActually, there are several well known Chess variants that allow placing pieces on board mid-game, such as Chessgi. And Shogi (Chinese chess) has it as in the \"vanilla\". \n\nTo make things more hard and fun (and to differentiate from Chessgi and board games as the whole) I added another twist: other than placing pieces, you can't do anything else, because all \"normal\" moves for Whites and Black are made by AI! On the other hand, unlike Chessgi\/Shogi you do not have to choose between moving and placing piece: both are done on the same turn.\n\nMost of my time making it was spenf on finding the right javascript chess engine with AI. \n\nMost starred on github is https:\/\/github.com\/lhartikk\/simple-chess-ai\n\nIt has decent API, but is very inefficient.\n\nSo, I continued looking and finally settled with https:\/\/github.com\/douglasbagnall\/p4wn\n\nIt's quite old, and written in very IE6 manner, but otherwise is pretty good: API is ok and AI is fast.\n\nSo, I took it, hacked it a bit and got a pretty fun chess variant, or, rather, four chess variants. One of them even makes you put pieces for Black too.\n\nYou can check them out on https:\/\/white-starts-with-nothing.netlify.com\/ - it's tiny and loads instantly.","comments":0,"created":"2019-10-06T19:21:29Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":171245,"love":5,"love-timestamp":"2025-10-17T08:53:04Z","meta":[],"modified":"2025-10-17T08:53:04Z","name":"So, I just applied LD theme to chess","node-timestamp":"2019-10-06T19:45:08Z","parent":170951,"parents":[1,5,9,159347,170951],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/white-starts-with-nothing\/so-i-just-applied-ld-theme-to-chess","published":"2019-10-06T19:45:08Z","scope":"public","slug":"so-i-just-applied-ld-theme-to-chess","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":500933},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"171245","n_urlkey":"351626","n_parent":"170951","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/white-starts-with-nothing\/so-i-just-applied-ld-theme-to-chess","n_slug":"so-i-just-applied-ld-theme-to-ch","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"24819","n_created":"1570389689","n_modified":"1760691184","n_version":"500933","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/white-starts-with-nothing\/so-i-just-applied-ld-theme-to-chess","text":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/$170951\n![screenshot.png](\/\/\/raw\/3f0\/6\/z\/261b6.png)\n\nI went with probably the most obvious approach to \"Start with Nothing\" theme.\n\nWhen nothingness is felt the most? When it's ion the place of something you are used to have.\n\nSo, I should take some familiar game or genre where player starts with something, and remove it.\n\nWhat's the most familiar game? Obviously, it's Chess.\n\nSo, just take Chess and remove one or both sides pieces! Then allow adding placing them gradually. \nIt's just that simple.\n\nActually, there are several well known Chess variants that allow placing pieces on board mid-game, such as Chessgi. And Shogi (Chinese chess) has it as in the \"vanilla\". \n\nTo make things more hard and fun (and to differentiate from Chessgi and board games as the whole) I added another twist: other than placing pieces, you can't do anything else, because all \"normal\" moves for Whites and Black are made by AI! On the other hand, unlike Chessgi\/Shogi you do not have to choose between moving and placing piece: both are done on the same turn.\n\nMost of my time making it was spenf on finding the right javascript chess engine with AI. \n\nMost starred on github is https:\/\/github.com\/lhartikk\/simple-chess-ai\n\nIt has decent API, but is very inefficient.\n\nSo, I continued looking and finally settled with https:\/\/github.com\/douglasbagnall\/p4wn\n\nIt's quite old, and written in very IE6 manner, but otherwise is pretty good: API is ok and AI is fast.\n\nSo, I took it, hacked it a bit and got a pretty fun chess variant, or, rather, four chess variants. One of them even makes you put pieces for Black too.\n\nYou can check them out on https:\/\/white-starts-with-nothing.netlify.com\/ - it's tiny and loads instantly.","title":"So, I just applied LD theme to chess","wayback_source":[]}