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Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

playlaser.xyz

61–69 of 69 posts

Re: Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

#62
I made a crappy bot for your game. It runs game tree search (no pruning) for 4 plies and picks the position with the most material advantage. It seems to beat me more effectively than most human opponents so far, though. What it lacks in long-term planning it makes up for in taking advantage of tactical errors.

It's currently running in a loop under the name "LASERFISH SHITTY CPU OPPONENT". It never joins your games - you have to click on it.

I also thought about making a puzzle opponent that would give you unusual FEN starting positions and nearly unlimited time, but I don't want to invent puzzles.

Does the game not send a gameOver packet when you win or lose by pawn move?

edit: I figured out why it can't find any moves and crashes. It can't find any of YOUR moves if it backs you into a corner and takes every single piece. With the crash fixed, it seems to be winning 2/3 of the time and drawing 1/3 (probably some stupid logic where it thinks lasering your king and their king and one pawn is a good tradeoff)

Re: Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

#64
post #49

Hey everyone, this has gained way more attention than I thought it would, 250 people playing right now, wow! 1. Thanks to everyone finding bugs, I just fixed what I think was causing people to have clocks go to zero and games end unexpectedly. If I'm correct, this only should have happened during games when the previous game was won or lost due to the win conditions instead of running out of time. Let me know if you…

The game is perfectly playable as it is, and a lot of fun! Well done. You might want to create some discord or similar to make sure the community outlives the short-lived HN celebrity.

Really? There wasn't already a Discord and you thought that was a problem? Why not Matrix, XMPP, or IRC? Sigh.

Re: Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

#66

Would be nice to just be able to "play against myself" on the home page or something. Would be a useful tool to get to grips with the rules and play with the concept

All you need is a chess board

If I use a chess board it'll be easier for my boss to see I'm not working

Re: Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

#67
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game is perfectly playable as it is, and a lot of fun! Well done. You might want to create some discord or similar to make sure the community outlives the short-lived HN celebrity.

Thanks! That's a good idea, I just made a discord server. Here it is for anyone interested: https://discord.gg/sB8sPMxTnV

I second the other sibling comment that recommends IRC, Matrix, XMPP. Discord is a walled garden and many people who want to avoid walled gardens are never going to sign up on Discord. But something based on open protocol like the sibling recommendation is more likely to see more users.

Re: Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

#68
post #62

I made a crappy bot for your game. It runs game tree search (no pruning) for 4 plies and picks the position with the most material advantage. It seems to beat me more effectively than most human opponents so far, though. What it lacks in long-term planning it makes up for in taking advantage of tactical errors. It's currently running in a loop under the name "LASERFISH SHITTY CPU OPPONENT". It never joins your games…

Hey, your bot is amazing! Thanks so much for making it. I made some changes to the api which should make things simpler for you but doesn't seem to fix that the bot doesn't record losses on winning move. Would love to chat on the discord if you are interested!

Re: Show HN: Laser, a new game played on a chess board

#69

Tried two games... The laser did not work if there was any (enemy) piece on the diagonal... So I could destroy any pieces with the laser.

Are you sure the rook wasn’t blocking your line of attack?

No, it wasn't.
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