DevLog #1: Building a Chess Engine - Goals and Initial Steps

I'm embarking on an exciting journey to create my own chess engine! In this first dev log entry, I’ll outline the main goals of the project and describe the initial steps taken to bring it to life. Additionally, I’ll share a simple GUI prototype that will serve as the foundation for players to interact with the engine.

Project Goals:

1. Creating a Simple GUI for Players

I aim to develop an intuitive user interface that allows easy chess gameplay. The GUI will cater to both beginners and advanced players.

2. Technology - Python

Python is the language of choice for this project. It’s an excellent option due to the availability of libraries such as pygame, tkinter, and chess, which simplify development significantly.

3. An Engine Better than Stockfish?

One of the ambitious goals of this project is to create an engine that matches or even surpasses Stockfish - one of the strongest chess engines in the world. I recognize the difficulty of this task, but the project’s core purpose is to learn and explore chess algorithms such as Minimax, Alpha-Beta Pruning, and neural networks.

How to install the pygame library?

After installing Python from this link - https://www.python.org/ - to install the pygame library, you need to open the command prompt (cmd) and type the following command:
> pip install pygame
If the installation is successful, you should see a message like the one shown in the image below:

To start the project, I’ve built a basic GUI using the pygame library. This GUI allows the player to interact with a chessboard - pieces can be moved, and the layout can be tested for valid moves. This serves as the foundation for more advanced features to come.

Here’s the prototype GUI code:

import pygame
import sys

pygame.init()

WIDTH, HEIGHT = 600, 600
SCREEN = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, HEIGHT))
pygame.display.set_caption("Chess Engine - GUI Prototype")

WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
LIGHT_BROWN = (240, 217, 181)
DARK_BROWN = (181, 136, 99)

TILE_SIZE = WIDTH // 8

def draw_board():
    for row in range(8):
        for col in range(8):
            color = LIGHT_BROWN if (row + col) % 2 == 0 else DARK_BROWN
            pygame.draw.rect(SCREEN, color, (col * TILE_SIZE, row * TILE_SIZE, TILE_SIZE, TILE_SIZE))

def main():
    running = True
    while running:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                running = False

        draw_board()

        pygame.display.flip()

    pygame.quit()
    sys.exit()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Result:

Summary and Next Steps:

In this entry, I’ve defined the project’s goals and built a foundational GUI. The next steps include:

1. Adding functionality for player moves and validating them.

2. Implementing a basic chess engine (e.g., using the Minimax algorithm).

3. Beginning the analysis and optimization of algorithms to develop a more advanced AI.

Stay tuned for the next devlog entries to see how the project evolves!