A strategic twist on chess where both players start with only a king and must spend gold to recruit pieces onto the board, earning gold back by capturing the opponent's army.
In Chess Gold, the familiar mechanics of chess meet an economic metagame:
- Start with nothing — each player begins with only their king and 3 gold
- Buy your army — spend gold to place pieces on the board (pawns, bishops, knights, rooks, queens)
- Earn through combat — capturing enemy pieces earns back gold (half the piece's purchase cost)
- Passive income — gain +1 gold at the start of each turn
- Win by checkmate — standard chess win conditions apply
Every turn, you choose: move a piece already on the board, or spend gold to place a new one. The tension between building your army and using it creates a unique strategic layer on top of chess fundamentals.
Chess Gold includes multiple game modes with different rule sets:
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Chess Gold | Core mode — gold economy + piece placement |
| Loot Boxes | Chess Gold + random loot box drops with items and power-ups |
| Gold Mine | Unrestricted variant — anything goes |
| Conqueror | Standard chess, but captured pieces switch sides |
| King's Chess | Chess Gold + piece conversion + placement throttle |
| Siege | Standard chess + center square pulse mechanic |
| Flashlight | Fog of war — you only see what your pieces can reach |
| Flashlight Gold | Flashlight + Chess Gold combined |
| Standard Chess | Classic chess (baseline mode) |
Modes can be combined via a feature flag system for custom rule sets.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Language | TypeScript |
| Build | Vite |
| Chess Rules | chessops |
| Board UI | Chessground |
| UI Framework | React |
| Unit Tests | Vitest |
| E2E Tests | Playwright |
Pre-development — Architecture and game design are defined. Implementation has not started.
See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full system architecture, data model, and phase plan.
| Phase | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Phase 1 (MVP) | Local 2-player Chess Gold — playable in browser |
| Phase 2 | UI/UX polish, sound, tutorial |
| Phase 3 | Web deployment |
| Phase 4 | Online multiplayer (WebSocket) |
| Phase 5 | Bot opponent |
| Phases 6-11 | Additional game modes + full platform (lobbies, Elo, matchmaking) |
| Document | Purpose |
|---|---|
| CONCEPT-CHESS-GOLD.md | Full game design specification |
| ARCHITECTURE.md | System architecture, data model, phase plan, ADRs |
| RESEARCH-CHESS-ENGINES.md | Chess library evaluation |
This project uses chessops and Chessground, both licensed under GPL-3.0. Accordingly, this project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.
See LICENSE for details.