Dreamchess.

[skar]

that's what i got so far, "fire&ice" theme & board

http://home.arcor.de/dosox/transfer/fireice.zip (1,1 mb, just unzip into the data folder)

creating theme's is incredibly easy. just give it a try everyone.

just one question, what is the chess set in the /themes/pieces.png used for? i couldn't find anything it affects in the game.

[Phantom]

that's what i got so far, "fire&ice" theme & board

Looks nice, but are the graphics copyrighted?

just one question, what is the chess set in the /themes/pieces.png used for? i couldn't find anything it affects in the game.

I don't see a /themes/pieces.png file. Do you mean /themes/themename/pieces.png? That chess set is used for dialogs that contain chess pieces, e.g. to select the promotion piece.

[skar]

ok.

the background pictures are from personal photos.

the board is a variation of your own one, i just changed the colors. so yeah it should have copyright... yours... i guess.

the fire symbol is what i'm not sure about... i guess i'll change it into a carneol, then it should be ok after all...

[DCmad]

There is plenty Photoshop tutorials arround the web teaching how to do nice interfaces. Sure we could take advantage of this.
By "themeable", i was just seeing the ability of making new pieces. Great job, Skar.
And Phantom, please give us a new version

[Phantom]

And Phantom, please give us a new version

There aren't enough changes to warrant another release, IMO.

Btw, we can use help in many areas, a summary below:

Dreamcast port maintainer
Quality assurance (mainly testing)
Packager (e.g. making SBI or CDI files)
Webmaster
2D graphics artist
3D modeller
Musician

[skar]

files are back up, now changed.

i'll be away for one week, might try some chess sets afterwards.

[az_bont]

The game plays great, but I've noticed a couple of missing moves:

1. Queenside castling
2. En passent

And a couple of mistakes:

1. If you move an your pawn to the opposite end of the board, you are given the option of choosing a new piece even if the move is an illegal one. You select a piece and the game just carries on as if you never moved.
2. If no piece is taken or a pawn does not move for 50 turns, the game should be declared a draw.

[Phantom]

The game plays great, but I've noticed a couple of missing moves:

1. Queenside castling
2. En passent

Should both work, I'll check that.

And a couple of mistakes:

1. If you move an your pawn to the opposite end of the board, you are given the option of choosing a new piece even if the move is an illegal one. You select a piece and the game just carries on as if you never moved.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I'll add some more checks. It's never 100% possible to only show that dialog when the move is valid, because the engine has the final say in that, and in order to know whether the move is truly valid you need to send the engine a complete move including promotion piece.

2. If no piece is taken or a pawn does not move for 50 turns, the game should be declared a draw.

This should also work. I'll investigate.

In the future it is best to submit bug reports on our website http://developer.berlios.de/projects/dreamchess, because posts on message boards are easily forgotten. What also helps is if you save the game when the problem occurs and attach the savegame to the bug report.

[Phantom]

The game plays great, but I've noticed a couple of missing moves:

1. Queenside castling
2. En passent

I just tested both of these and they seem to work. Could you give a more precise description of the problem, like a list of moves that demonstrates it.

[az_bont]

When trying to perform en passent, the move works for a brief moment, and the point for removing the pawn is recognised on the side of the screen - but the pieces move straight back to their original positions after a spliit second, as if you did not make the move.

Queenside castling appears to work - I was moving the Queen by mistake .

How do you save a game, by the way?

[Phantom]

When trying to perform en passent, the move works for a brief moment, and the point for removing the pawn is recognised on the side of the screen - but the pieces move straight back to their original positions after a spliit second, as if you did not make the move.

Could you give a sequence of moves that demonstrates this problem, or even better, a savegame?

If the move is accepted initially and then reverted that means that the GUI has accepted the move, and it was rejected by the chess engine. The engine does a lot more legality checks than the GUI does.

How do you save a game, by the way?

Push 's' while in-game. The file will be called 'dreamchess.pgn', I don't quite remember where it is stored, but I think it's somewhere in a user-specific location.

[az_bont]

Okay, there are some strange things going on at the moment. I just tried to complete a few moves and the game is doing exactly what it was doing earlier - legitimate moves are taking place, but the pieces revert back to their original positions immediately.

I've got a search running on my computer for the save file but it's turned up nothing so far - I've manually checked the DreamChess folder and the 'Application Data' folder in XP, but no luck so far.

If you want to recreate the problem, then make the following moves:

Code: Select all

1 g4 h5
2 gxh5 f6
3 h6 g8

Now undo all of those moves so you're right at the start, and make the first move again. When I try to do that it exhibits the above mentioned problem.

[Phantom]

I've got a search running on my computer for the save file but it's turned up nothing so far - I've manually checked the DreamChess folder and the 'Application Data' folder in XP, but no luck so far.

The path is "Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\DreamChess\dreamchess.pgn".

If you don't get this file then please make sure you're using the latest version.

Code: Select all

1 g4 h5
2 gxh5 f6
3 h6 g8

Now undo all of those moves so you're right at the start, and make the first move again. When I try to do that it exhibits the above mentioned problem.

Yeah I see it, thanks. EDIT: I can only reproduce this when I undo a single ply with the 'u' key. Do you see the problem if you retract the move via the game menu? (push 'g').

[az_bont]

I've got a search running on my computer for the save file but it's turned up nothing so far - I've manually checked the DreamChess folder and the 'Application Data' folder in XP, but no luck so far.

The path is "Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\DreamChess\dreamchess.pgn".

If you don't get this file then please make sure you're using the latest version.

I'm using v1.2 and it isn't there .

Is there a newer version?

Code: Select all

1 g4 h5
2 gxh5 f6
3 h6 g8

Now undo all of those moves so you're right at the start, and make the first move again. When I try to do that it exhibits the above mentioned problem.

Yeah I see it, thanks. EDIT: I can only reproduce this when I undo a single ply with the 'u' key. Do you see the problem if you retract the move via the game menu? (push 'g').

I get the same problem when I undo moves via the in-game menu. This time I moved the black's rook one to the left, un-did the move and then tried to do it again, and got the same problem .

[Phantom]

I'm using v1.2 and it isn't there .

There is no version 1.2. Where did you see that?

Is there a newer version?

This is the latest version: http://www.retrovg.com/dreamchess/dream ... -win32.zip. I guess we should think of some way to label these demos so we can tell them apart.

Could you verify that you're in fact running this version? Otherwise I might be debugging bugs that are already fixed.

[az_bont]

I've just tried the newest version (the one you linked to) and the problems still exist .

[Phantom]

I've just tried the newest version (the one you linked to) and the problems still exist .

Do you see any relevant messages in stdout.txt or stderr.txt after closing DreamChess? Are you using anything other than XP? If so, that might have something to do with it.

Could someone else try to save a game please? Just start dreamchess, make sure you're on the board view and push the 's' key on the keyboard. Then look for a file Documents and Settings\"Username"\Application Data\DreamChess\dreamchess.pgn.

As for the undo problem, could you give the shortest sequence of moves that demonstrates this problem? Ignore the 'u' key for now because that functionality is definitely broken, I'm only concerned about 'Retract Move' in the game menu now.

[az_bont]

I've just tried the newest version (the one you linked to) and the problems still exist .

Do you see any relevant messages in stdout.txt or stderr.txt after closing DreamChess? Are you using anything other than XP? If so, that might have something to do with it.

This is in 'stdout.txt':

Code: Select all

DreamChess
Loading theme.
Loading pawn.dcm
Loading white.png
Already loaded pawn.dcm
Loading black.png
Loading knight.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded knight.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading bishop.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded bishop.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading rook.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded rook.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading queen.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded queen.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading king.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded king.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading board.dcm
Loading board.png
Loaded theme.
Received: Error (unknown command): random
Received: Error (unknown command): depth 1
Move: g2g4
SAN: g4
Sending: g2g4
Move: h7h5
SAN: h5
Sending: h7h5
Move: g4h5
SAN: gxh5
Sending: g4h5
Move: g8f6
Found candidate at 62
SAN: Nf6
Sending: g8f6
Move: h5h6
SAN: h6
Sending: h5h6
Move: h8g8
Found candidate at 63
SAN: Rg8
Sending: h8g8

I haven't got an 'stderr.txt'.

As for the undo problem, could you give the shortest sequence of moves that demonstrates this problem? Ignore the 'u' key for now because that functionality is definitely broken, I'm only concerned about 'Retract Move' in the game menu now.

Bah! It's stopped doing it for now .

Maybe its just my machine that doesn't like it?

[Phantom]

This is in 'stdout.txt':

Is that all the output after pushing 's'?

And what windows version are you using?

[az_bont]

This is in 'stdout.txt':

Is that all the output after pushing 's'?

No, but here's a copy of one after making one move on each side and pushing 's':

Code: Select all

DreamChess
Loading theme.
Loading pawn.dcm
Loading white.png
Already loaded pawn.dcm
Loading black.png
Loading knight.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded knight.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading bishop.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded bishop.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading rook.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded rook.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading queen.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded queen.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading king.dcm
Already loaded white.png
Already loaded king.dcm
Already loaded black.png
Loading board.dcm
Loading board.png
Loaded theme.
Received: Error (unknown command): random
Received: Error (unknown command): depth 1
Move: b2b4
SAN: b4
Sending: b2b4
Received: move e7e6
Move: e7e6
Move: e7e6
SAN: e6

And what windows version are you using?

Windows XP SP2. It's the Home Edition.