When I began developing Caïssa Board in January 2021, my goal was to create a modern chess interface. I envisioned an application where users could analyze their own games, marvel at master tactics, and enjoy the experience with 2D or 3D visuals and gamepad support.
The first playable version was released in July 2021, but it didn't achieve the success I had hoped for. Simply displaying forks, pins, and skewers on the board wasn't enough. This prompted me to reconsider what a truly modern chess interface should offer, leading to a series of significant changes.
I began by adding chess variants, followed by Lichess integration, a switch from Unity to Unreal Engine, a database, multiplayer mode, and finally, the Lua scripting language for database filtering. Each of these additions required substantial modifications. Two more major features remained: a mod creator and the ability to adapt Caïssa Board to various board sizes and chess sets, enabling support for variants like Capablanca Chess, Xiangqi, and Shogi.
I believe these will be the last major overhauls. Going forward, the game should be flexible enough to accommodate new features without requiring such extensive changes. There are two additional features I'd like to include, and I anticipate being able to implement them before the next update.
What Has Changed So Far?
As you may recall, my last update concerned the database. However, I wasn't satisfied with its performance when handling millions of games. While I don't intend to compete with specialized chess software like SCID or ChessBase, I wanted reasonable speed. Consequently, I switched the database from SQLite to PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL offers excellent performance due to its binary data handling. However, I'll partially revert this change, allowing users to choose between SQLite and PostgreSQL, as SQLite is often more convenient.
Another key addition is the mod creator. Users can now design their own chess pieces, boards, and even maps for Caïssa Board. They can also incorporate their Lua scripts and game databases into mods for sharing on the Steam Workshop.
Given the extent of these changes, I decided to incorporate even more: support for Shogi, Xiangqi, and the Capablanca Chess variant, which requires additional pieces and an 8x10 board. This necessitated changes to how moves are represented and will definitely make Caïssa Board slower than SCID and ChessBase. However, I believe these additions are worth the trade-off.
The two features I'm considering adding next are Lua game analyzers and Lua chess bots. These shouldn't be too difficult for me to implement and won't require significant changes to the existing structure. While I'd also like to include Lua chess variant support, this is unlikely at this stage.
After the next update, Caïssa Board will transition from alpha to beta. At that point, my focus will shift to polishing the UI and maps.
Next Release
Prior to the next update, I'll release a dedicated Unreal Engine project on GitHub to facilitate mod creation. It's nearing completion, but I'll need to conduct some final testing before making it available.
Following this, the update will enter its beta phase. I'm confident that the public release will occur before July 2025, and I expect to be ready well in advance, as the majority of the development is already behind us.
Social Networks
I am sometimes posting progress about Caïssa Board on BlueSky (mainly) and Mastodon (occasionally), here are the links:
https://bsky.app/profile/dominiquelorre.bsky.social
https://mastodon.social/@DominiqueLorre
I have also opened a Discord server if you wish to contact me there:
https://discord.gg/mrsNM5b5tz
