Obsidian Crown Chess

Dark-fantasy chess for Windows — real rules, isometric animated armies, and train-vs-your-bot APEX champions.

Play in 60 seconds

1. Download the latest Windows x64 zip from Releases
2. Extract the folder anywhere
3. Run ObsidianCrownChess.exe
4. Choose White Order or Black Court and duel your APEX champion

No installer and no separate .NET SDK install — the portable package is self-contained.

Game site: liminallyspaced.github.io/obsidian-crown-chess

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What this is

Obsidian Crown Chess keeps full chess legality while presenting every match as a red-and-black champion duel:

Pillar	Detail
Fantasy presentation	White Order vs Black Court isometric armies on a crown-circle board
Real chess	Castling, en passant, promotion, checks/mates — regression-tested rules
APEX AI	Local champion opponent (Stockfish UCI hybrid when the binary is present)
Train-vs-your-bot	Single-player is about playing your bot — not a shallow Easy/Medium/Hard menu
Desktop-native	.NET WinForms client, LocalAppData profiles, fullscreen (F11)

Honest alpha status

Ready now	Still in progress
Local matches vs APEX	Friends multiplayer (server scaffold only)
Portable Windows zip	Signed installer + live auto-update
Animated isometric units (2 validated views)	Extra camera angles + richer combat art
Open source + packaging scripts	Broader soak / DPI public-alpha matrix

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Screenshots

Start	Black Court view

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Repository layout

ObsidianCrownChess.sln
├── RetroRpgChess / Program.cs     # WinForms client entry
├── src/
│   ├── ObsidianCrown.Core/        # Platform-neutral chess rules
│   ├── ObsidianCrown.Engine/      # Stockfish UCI + fallback
│   ├── ObsidianCrown.Data/        # SQLite champions / replays
│   ├── ObsidianCrown.Assets/      # Combat animation helpers
│   ├── ObsidianCrown.Updates/     # Update service stub
│   └── ObsidianCrown.Protocol/    # Online protocol contracts
├── server/                        # Friends multiplayer scaffold
├── assets/                        # Icons, unit sheets, FX
├── release/                       # Local publish output (not fully git-tracked)
├── tools/                         # publish-release.ps1, ICO, validators
└── docs/                          # Design docs + public GitHub Pages site

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Build from source (developers)

Requirements: Windows, .NET 9 SDK, PowerShell

# Restore + build
dotnet build ObsidianCrownChess.sln -c Release

# Optional: fetch Stockfish into vendor/
powershell -File tools/fetch-stockfish.ps1

# Package a player-ready zip into release/
powershell -File tools/publish-release.ps1

Quality gates used in development:

dotnet test ObsidianCrownChess.sln -c Release
dotnet run --project qa/rules-regression/RulesRegression.csproj -c Release

Settings / profiles for packaged runs live under:

%LocalAppData%\ObsidianCrownChess\

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Third-party notices

This project can ship with Stockfish (GPLv3), launched as a separate UCI process.
See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for obligations and attribution.

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Links

• Download: Latest release
• Website: GitHub Pages
• Issues: Bug reports & ideas

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License

Game source in this repository is provided for open development of Obsidian Crown Chess.
Third-party components (notably Stockfish) remain under their own licenses — see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.