picochess v0.87 – Set pieces

Since Digital Game Technology released their DGT-Pi (our version 0.75) it was a wish from them to let users recognize a wrong move made. The game won’t continue but a user doesn’t know why it is so.

Well, with this version 0.87 this wish is finally done. If a position is not expected from picochess for example you place a wrong piece to a spot you will get a message on your clock saying “set pieces”. Thats also so during you setup a starting position. I experimented abit on how long to wait to give out such message cause it could also be that are still holding the piece up to make your move and so on. Finally, i decided 3secs – that should be long enough to make your move and short enough to not let the user wait in uncertainty of what to do.

Another thing i have done is refactoring the move display. Especially when you setup a reversed board (white pieces are at row7+8) the display was turned around to let the move been displayed on the side of your starting spots. This could then leaded to strange display for example at the webserver like “1.e5” for a black move. That wasn’t as bug – it was meant to be so, but it could easily lead to confusion. So i changed it to show always “1.e4”, or “1…e5” no matter if you have rotated the dgt-board or not.

Something off-topic: Look at the image at top. White to move. What is its best move? Its from a famous game. Do you know who played? Hint: Use picochess to analyse this position. Also you can find out the answer who played it by asking the database inside the picochess webserver. Thats only a small example how picochess can make you play better.