Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Indeed. I realized that while starting drawing some mockups. Perhaps I have something basic to show this evening?

I'm all for a default standard 2D green-grey board. All the 3D animated stuff might be fancy (question mark goes here) but it quite distracting when playing.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Yes, same here (Amiga 500 and DOS/80286), fond memories of simple yet fun game :)

Not only fancy, also fun to the casual chess player or beginner. So, it depends on target user you trying to cater to.

Could be configurable. For example, in Battle Chess you could disable the animations, and IIRC can run it satellite view instead of bird view. Then it is question what is default setting.

It'd also require some real design work, and a concept for a theme. Or multiple theme support.

Just keep in mind not every chess player is a pro...

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

We need to find the stright way to get the features working with simple, usable, elegant UI. If this is done with, as you say, a good separation of engine and UI + themes then having an optional 3D animated UI is a task someone can take without delaying the trunk development.

Bird view in a mobile interface? It's not that you have the luxury of wasting too much space with angles and perspective.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

I'll throw a simple vote in requesting that captured pieces should not take up space on the screen. Doesn't seem like it would be worth the trouble.

Last move would be something very important though. A simple straight arrow pointing to the piece and where it came from is a feature I would most love to see.

And I'm with qgil, a default standard 2D green-grey board is all that's needed.

3D chess graphics never did it for me.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

If anyone would like for me to draw up the graphics, I wouldn't mind doing so.

I made this hack a few years back for the Gameboy Color.

Wow, I can't believe that web page still exists, I thought it would have died a long time ago. :)

Edit:
Here's a screen shot that's very close to what I would like to see.
http://images.appshopper.com/screenshots/300/592059.jpg

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

I find this impossible. GNU chess is *extremely* fast (orders of magnitude ahead of competition) because of its code. Most things are accomplished with bit-wise operations with very small memory footprint. When I examined its code (about a couple of years ago - version 4) I was amazed because the location of pawns on a board were just a 64-bit bit-mapped integer (8x8):

typedef uint64_t BitBoard;

/* piece/pawn positions by side (0=white, 1=black) and then by piece (1=pawn..6=king).
For example, b[white][knight] has bits set for every board position occupied by a White Knight. */
BitBoard b[2][7];

Because of its small memory footprint most of the operations are performed by the processor alone (read: using processor cache, without significant memory reads/writes) which by itself boost its speed by a factor of 1000 (for using cache instead of memory) and perhaps an even greater factor for using mostly bit-wise operations.

So, if you port that to Qt, you'll most probably loose a lot. However, since this is simple C code, you can just use it as-is, or even better use gnuchess by itself as-is.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

If designed with that in mind it allows easy addition to attract a different 'type' of player. Think: casual players, beginners, kids, women (the non-hardcore chess playing type).

Same with default settings. Default settings depend on most common user, depends on what user you're trying to cater to.

With regards to theming you can assume some people want the traditional symbols while other want more 'classy' symbols. Even in 2D. For example, some will prefer the symbols used in Chessmaster link while for other this will be unnecessary.

Why not? It works on iPhone. If one can easily zoom in or out its not much of a problem. I assume that to be true on Harmattan. I also assume the chat can be hidden to give user fullscreen view of the board.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Optional UI's could be added to the game as plugins. That way the optional UI's could be anything and their development woudn't drag the core development. Althought it would require some extra work on the game engine.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

A first concept for the Play Game Online view.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Image:Miniatura-playgameh.png

- Board takes all the surface possible

- The Maemo status area (or a replica if it can't be embedded that way) happens to show important information: the time, you are online, battery left... saving you from having to go out & in of the game.

- The elements are boxes that should be easy to relocate in portrait mode.

- The texts on the left are purely orientative, both in copy and design. The player having the current move should be highlighted (but I have my limits with Gimp and starts to be late here).

- As you see from the opening identified, it asumes some database working in the background. Just like a score that could be added to see how well are you performing. These fields are optional and the UI should work equally well without them.

- The day we have chat, the messages would show up with transparency on the left side. The board is never covered.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

3D view is completely unplayable... especially for bullet and blixt games. But it's fine as long as you play offline versus the N900, without time limits that is.