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Core Concepts

This guide explains the core concepts of the Chess barebones library.

The Game Loop​

The Game class from @chess-barebones/core is the heart of the library. It orchestrates the game loop, manages players, and handles moves. The Game class is a generic class that can be used to create any turn-based, board-centric game.

The Board​

The AbstractBoard class represents the game board. It is responsible for managing the state of the board, including the positions of all the pieces. The @chess-barebones/core package includes one concrete implementation: Board8x8.

Figures​

The AbstractFigure class represents a piece on the board. It is an abstract class that must be extended to create a specific type of figure. The @chess-barebones/chess package provides concrete implementations of AbstractFigure for all the standard chess pieces.

Players​

The Player class represents a participant in the game. A Player is initialized with a color and a flank.

Handlers​

Handlers are objects that implement the Handler interface, which allows you to hook into various game events, such as onStart, onMove, and onEnd. You can use handlers to implement custom game logic, such as checking for checkmate or stalemate.

Serializers​

Serializers are responsible for serializing and deserializing moves. The @chess-barebones/chess package includes an AlgebraicNotationSerializer that can serialize and deserialize moves in standard algebraic notation.

Observable State​

The ObservableState class is a base class for creating stateful, subscribable objects. The Game, AbstractBoard, AbstractFigure, and Player classes all extend ObservableState.

This allows you to subscribe to changes in the state of these objects and react accordingly. For example, you can subscribe to the Game object to be notified when the game starts or ends, or you can subscribe to a Player object to be notified when the player's score changes.

The @chess-barebones/chess-react package provides the useObservablesState hook, which makes it easy to subscribe to ObservableState instances in a React component.