It's been one week since Chess (Over The Board) went out and I've been hard at work finding bugs and finishing features that didn't quite make it in last week. 

One of the first requests I got from players trying the game is to add legal move highlighting. Now, when you pick up a piece, the squares it can legally move to are highlighted, including the pieces that can be captured.

It is on by default. If you want the authentic over-the-board experience, where finding your legal moves is part of the game, turn it off and you're back to reading the position yourself.

I got to witness a few interesting incidents on live streams when S&box was finally released (LET'S GET IT GAMERS). I decided to add a streamer mode toggle in the settings to disable voice and text chat, should you wish to focus on the chess while streaming.

If you've ever sat in a lobby with an odd number of players, you know the awkwardness of being the one without an opponent while everyone else is mid-game. Now you can fill that seat with a bot.

From the analysis HUD (default keybind is Q), press the robot icon to start a game against a computer opponent. When your game is over, the bot will be automatically be dismissed.

The higher difficulty bots are now powered by Leorik, a strong open-source chess engine. This means that they now put up a proper challenge, one I am not personally strong enough to overcome. 

The same engine also drives the new evaluation bar in analysis mode. You can scrub through your game and watch the bar tilt as the position swings, which is the fastest way to spot the move where things actually went sideways. A small addition, but it makes post-game review a lot more useful.

We still want to expand on analysis mode so you can properly review your games.

Most of my efforts this week were on strengthening our networking implementation. Every once in a while, there would be board synchronization issues that prevented players from playing until they rejoined the lobby. A lot of those issues have been corrected, but if you encounter any more, please submit a bug report. 

Many more smaller fixes have shipped this week to improve stability and game feel. Notably, ending turns by hitting the clock is now supported when time control is disabled.

Over the past week, I got to meet and play against some of you. I'm super pleased with the experience, I did feel like it was reminiscent of meeting players over the board IRL, which is precisely the feeling I was going for. 

After the bug fixes and new features, I'm very happy with the foundation I have now. There is still more testing to be done and smaller issues to be fixed, but I'm confident the most important pieces are in to build off of. In the coming weeks, I'll be working on polish by adding more sounds, working on the chess club scene and tightening loose ends.

Ranked matchmaking is still coming, but I have a couple more work to do to ensure a fair experience. I also have a couple surprises planned out that I'm excited to unveil, but that's further down the road. In the meantime, if you have any more ideas or suggestions, please reach out!