Chess in Space Guide

1. Play

Choose Computer or Play both sides, your colour, one or two boards, and a time control. Press Play to start. Tap a piece, then a marked legal destination. Drag to rotate; scroll or pinch to zoom. A pawn reaching its last rank offers queen, rook, bishop or knight.

The three computer levels use a local chess search with different thinking limits. They are casual opponents without calibrated Elo ratings. Play both sides also works for two people sharing a device. Online multiplayer is not included.

2. Double the chess

Two independent games occupy opposite faces of the same board. Use Flip board, choose Board A or B, or rotate underneath to reach the other face. Each face keeps its own turn, pieces, history and result. Pieces never cross between games. Both board indicators remain available; the camera never follows a computer move automatically. Finishing one game leaves the other playable.

3. Clocks and saving

Untimed play has no deadline. Timed presets and Custom provide minutes per player and seconds added after each completed move. Zero minutes means untimed. The mover’s clock switches when a legal move is accepted; animation never delays the switch. Promotion time belongs to the player until a piece is chosen.

In double chess, both active clocks run even while you view the other face. Clocks also continue in Guide, Settings or a background tab. Pause pauses both boards and computer thinking. Resume restarts them together. This is local, unrated play.

Games save locally after moves and periodically while open. Reloading or returning restores the last saved positions and remaining time, paused. Time away from a closed page is not deducted. A browser crash may lose the seconds since the last save. Clearing this site’s browser data removes the saved game. If storage is blocked, a message explains that the session remains in memory only. Starting a new game replaces both saved boards after confirmation.

4. Rules and draws

Standard legal moves include castling, en passant, all four promotions and protection against leaving your king in check. Checkmate and stalemate end a game. Threefold repetition and the 50-move rule can be claimed; fivefold repetition and the 75-move rule are automatic. Checkmate takes precedence on the final move. The computer claims an available draw.

Claim draw appears when the current position qualifies. To claim based on an intended next move, open Draw on next move, choose Choose claim move, then select that legal move. A valid claim ends the game without playing the intended move. With both sides controlled locally, Agree draw records agreement.

Common insufficient-material positions are detected automatically. Rare dead positions caused by completely blocked arrangements are not comprehensively adjudicated; this release is for casual play, not tournament arbitration. Timeout checks include whether the opponent has mating material, allowing help from the other side’s remaining pieces. No result is inferred from the computer’s evaluation score.

5. View and appearance

Space, Dusk and Studio change the board environment independently of website themes. Reset view returns to a comfortable playing angle; Top view looks directly at the current face. Zoom controls work without gestures. Keyboard board provides a flat board with named squares and arrow-key navigation, and is the fallback when 3D is unavailable.

Pieces rise before travelling and settle onto their destination. Fast time controls shorten movement; Reduced motion removes piece and flip animations. Your operating system’s reduced-motion preference supplies the initial setting. Appearance preferences stay on this device.

6. Privacy, source and licences

Created by Andraž Đurič with AI assistance. Chess in Space 0.1.0 is a test release. The game and computer opponent run on your device. Positions and moves are not uploaded. No account or external chess service is used. The page needs an initial internet connection; installable or guaranteed offline operation is not included.

Download Chess in Space source. Original game code and procedural piece models use 0BSD: use, modify and redistribute them, including commercially, without attribution to Andraž. The standalone source includes build instructions. Third-party components keep their own licences: chess.js (BSD-2-Clause), Three.js (MIT), and React (MIT). The surrounding website remains under its existing MIT licence.

Website settings

Main site and the named parents above the page follow the site’s hierarchy. Guide and Settings use local pages where available.

Settings lets you hide the header and choose Light, Light Gray, Dark or Pitch Black / OLED. Light Gray is the first-visit default. The parent row and footer remain available when the header is hidden.

Choose System, DM Sans, Outfit, or Outfit headings with DM Sans body text in Settings. The preview and interface change immediately. Outfit is the first-visit default; fonts are served by these websites. Your saved selection is preserved.

Theme, header and font preferences are shared across andrazdjuric.com websites in this browser. They contain no document data or visitor identifier and are separate from installed application settings.

Contact in the footer opens the main site’s contact options in a new tab. Use it for questions, problem reports or suggestions.

The shared interface rules explain navigation, link markers, themes, raised surfaces and control states.