Chess TUI

Chess TUI is an innovative terminal user interface (TUI) for playing chess, developed in Rust. The project provides a seamless and interactive way to enjoy chess directly from your terminal. Its implementation ensures that even in a text-based environment, users can experience the complexity and excitement of a traditional chess game.

The helper menu is a standout feature, offering players easy access to commands and controls without needing to refer to external documentation. This enhances the user experience by providing on-the-fly assistance.

Helper menu

The interface effectively handles all standard chess moves and conditions for checkmate, ensuring an authentic chess experience.

Piece moves and checkmate

The application supports various draw conditions in chess, including:

• Stalemate
• 50 moves rule
• Threefold repetition

These rules are essential for a comprehensive chess-playing experience, adhering to official chess regulations.

While a demo for piece promotion isn't available yet, the feature is supported, allowing pawns to be promoted to other pieces, a critical aspect of advanced gameplay.

Chess TUI allows users to play against any UCI-compatible chess engines. This feature broadens the scope of gameplay, enabling users to challenge sophisticated AI opponents.

Play against a chess engine

Chess TUI can be installed and run via multiple methods, ensuring accessibility across different systems:

• Docker: Run using a Docker container for a quick setup.
• Cargo: Install using Rust's package manager.
• GitHub: Clone the repository and build it manually.
• NetBSD: Available as a pre-compiled binary in the official repositories.
• Arch Linux: Install from the official Arch repositories.

The project's future developments and planned features are detailed in its roadmap. This provides insights into upcoming improvements and opportunities for contribution.

Chess TUI is also available on crates.io, allowing easy integration into other Rust projects.

To play against a chess engine, users can link any UCI-compatible engine using the -e command-line option, ensuring flexibility in gameplay. For example:

chess-tui -e /your/bin/path

This command sets up the chess engine for repeated use without needing to relink it.

Chess TUI is a powerful tool for chess enthusiasts looking for a text-based gaming experience. Its rich feature set and robust implementation in Rust make it a noteworthy addition to the world of terminal-based applications.