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Medita Chess

aparkin

Member
Dec 21, 2016
58
29
I wrote an app that may be of interest to chess enthusiasts.  It is designed to teach particular openings such as the King's Gambit, Sicilian Defence, etc. All the main openings from the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings are available (ECO codes A00-E99). The default setting is to play a random opening, but if you select a particular opening the app will guide you through the correct moves by highlighting them with a small red circle.

You can play an opening against the app, or have it play an opening against you so you can practice defending against it. For example, if you select the Sicilian Fischer-Sozin Attack when playing white, the app will guide you through white's attacking moves. Alternatively, if you select the Sicilian Fischer-Sozin Attack when playing black, the app will play white's attacking moves against you. 

Once the opening is complete (or if you deviate from the guided moves) the game continues but the engine will simply start to calculate moves using its engine.  There is also a Java desktop application allowing the application to run on a PC.


Main site

http://www.apdroid.byethost5.com/meditachess/chessapplet.html


Google Play link

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aparkin.meditachess
 
Thanks for the comments!

I'm currently working on an enhancement that will enable you to play against the renowned Stockfish engine rather than the built-in engine I wrote, and practice any opening against it. For example, you could see how Stockfish responds as black after you open with the Sicilian Accelerated Fianchetto, or have Stockfish open with the Queen's Gambit Accepted against you. It isn't quite ready to release on Google Play yet as I'm still testing and fixing any outstanding issues, but it is basically working.

If anyone wants to help beta-test this version please drop me an email (contact details are on the main web page above) and I can send you the details.
 
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Just added a new feature: you can load a PGN file and rather than just step through the game using back/forward buttons, the app will guide you through the moves of whichever side you prefer so you can replay it yourself. You can follow the guidance to the end, or at any time if you fancy trying out an alternative move to see what might have happened had the game taken a different direction, just make whatever move you like and the game continues with the engine picking up from that point. Once a PGN is loaded it appears in the list of openings and can be selected from there.

Tested on a number of devices and with a variety of PGN files, but if you have any problems loading one please send me details of the device and the PGN file and I will be happy to investigate.
 
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I'm working on another enhancement which will allow the app to use any chess engine installed on the device that uses the Open Exchange Format. So far I've tested it on Komodo 8 and 9, Stockfish 9 and Texel 1.08 and on a number of different devices (OnePlus, Samsung, HTC) and it seems to work fine. If anyone would like to help test this on some additional engines / devices please let me know.
 
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Unfortunately the version on Google Play no longer supports external engines such as Stockfish. This is due to a new restriction Google have put in place preventing an app from launching external code. If you try to select an external engine on this version you will now see a message stating that external engines are not supported.

I've uploaded an APK to the app's website at http://www.apdroid.byethost5.com/meditachess/chessapplet.html#androidapp that does support external engines so if you want to play against these you will need to sideload this APK. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
 
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