_____ _ _ ______ _____ _____ _____ ______ ____ ____ _____ _ _
/ ____| | | | ____|/ ____/ ____| | __ \| ____| _ \ / __ \| __ \| \ | |
| | | |__| | |__ | (___| (___ | |__) | |__ | |_) | | | | |__) | \| |
| | | __ | __| \___ \\___ \ | _ /| __| | _ <| | | | _ /| . ` |
| |____| | | | |____ ____) |___) | | | \ \| |____| |_) | |__| | | \ \| |\ |
\_____|_| |_|______|_____/_____/ |_| \_\______|____/ \____/|_| \_\_| \_|
Chess Reborn is a modern, feature-packed chess application designed for Android. It features offline P2P multiplayer via Bluetooth and QR codes, 10 game variants, Stockfish engine analysis, and an ultra-smooth Material Design 3 UI with dynamic Monet styling and dynamic lava lamp background animations.
Click to view Design & Visual Features
- Adapts to Your Device: Color palettes automatically adapt to match your system theme and Material You Monet color scheme.
- Customizable Glow Rings: Cards and buttons feature subtle glowing outlines with selectable accent colors in Settings:
- Monet Primary, Emerald Green, Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue, Royal Gold, Amethyst Purple, Neon Cyan, Pixel Green, and Sunburst Coral.
- Touch Responsiveness: Interactive buttons and cards scale smoothly inward when tapped for tactile feedback.
- Fluid Wave Motion: A smooth, organic lava lamp animated background floats continuously behind the game board.
- Move Reactivity: Every time a piece is moved, the lava lamp speeds up and shifts direction to reflect move energy.
- Dynamic Turn Colors:
- White's Turn: Warm sunburst gold and soft cyan waves.
- Black's Turn: Electric purple, magenta, and midnight blue waves.
- Check (+): Glowing warning red and coral orange waves.
- Victory (++): Festive emerald green and celebratory gold waves.
- Customizable in Settings: Toggle between turn-based dynamic colors or a fixed color theme.
- Utility screens (such as Settings and Friends) feature a 3D-styled background with floating chess piece motifs, perspective grid lines, and soft lighting.
- Screen Transitions: Navigating between screens (Settings, Friends, Board Editor, Saved Games, QR Pairing) smoothly slides into view from the side.
- Hidden Pop-up Menus: Game variant pickers and clock preset menus slide up gracefully from the bottom.
- Easy Navigation: Tapping the back button smoothly closes open menus or returns to the home screen.
Full localized interface available in 10 major languages:
- English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, French, and German.
- Modern shimmering skeleton loading screen placeholders during startup initialization.
- Victory Screen (++): Golden particle celebrations upon checkmate.
- Defeat Screen: Animated shattered king overlay when checkmated.
- Draw Screen: Neutral balanced card with quick rematch and engine analysis options.
Click to view Technical & Backend Architecture
- Play face-to-face on two separate phones without needing an internet connection.
- Pair by scanning a QR code or discovering nearby Bluetooth devices.
- Seamless move synchronization directly between both phones over RFCOMM socket channels.
- Built-in position evaluation powered by Stockfish.
- Visual evaluation score breakdown in centipawns or forced mate sequences.
- Step-by-step move review to analyze key moments and blunders.
Play traditional chess or explore 9 popular chess variants:
- Standard Chess: Traditional FIDE rules of chess.
- Crazyhouse: Captured pieces enter your reserve pocket and can be dropped onto empty squares.
- Chess 960 (Fischer Random): Randomized back-rank pieces at game setup.
- King of the Hill: Win by checkmate or by bringing your King to the four center squares (d4, d5, e4, e5).
- Three-Check: Win by checkmate or by checking your opponent's King three times.
- Atomic Chess: Captures trigger an explosion destroying adjacent non-pawn pieces.
- Horde Chess: 36 pawns battle a standard chess army.
- Antichess: Capturing is mandatory; first to lose all pieces or run out of moves wins.
- Racing Kings: Race your King to the 8th rank without giving check.
- Capablanca (8x8): Adapted Capablanca variant on an 8x8 board.
- Captured pieces enter a reserve tray at the top or bottom of the screen.
- Real-time piece count indicators (x2, x3) for stacked reserves.
- Tap a reserve piece and an empty valid square to drop it back into action.
- Quick Presets: Select Bullet (1|0, 2|1), Blitz (3|0, 3|2, 5|0, 5|3), Rapid (10|0), Slow (90|30), or Infinite Time.
- Custom Times: Adjustable durations up to multi-hour matches with optional Fischer increment seconds per move.
- Real-time algebraic move log display.
- Copy or export FEN position strings and full PGN game logs.
- Interactive Board Editor to set up custom positions and export FEN.
To compile and run Chess Reborn locally:
- Ensure JDK 21 and Gradle 8.11.1 or higher are installed on your system.
- Configure your Android SDK path in
local.properties. - Run the following command in the project root directory:
./run.sh # Or ./gradlew assembleDebug - The generated debug APK will be located at:
app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
- Vector chess piece artwork created by Colin M.L. Burnett.
- Built with Jetpack Compose, Material Design 3, and Kotlin.