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Chess III Arena


Chess III Arena is a simple chess game that utilizes Quake III Arena .md3 models for the various pieces. It was written as my first (allegedly) non-trivial ocaml application so I could see what I thought about the language. But more about that later. Most normal people are probably just interested in playing the game.

I did not create any models or art. All models and art are courtesy of the openarena project, and is licensed under GPL v2. Thanks guys! I'm no artist. Visit http://openarena.ws for more details.

Chess III Arena can optionally be configured to play a computer opponent via gnuchess and to use the original Quake III models from id Software if you have a copy of Quake III.

Installation

Windows

  • Download the executable in zip format (sig).
  • Extract the files. [Right- click, choose Extract All, Next your way through the wizard.]
  • Open the new 'c3a-win32' folder.
  • Double-click on the c3a icon.
  • Enjoy!

Linux

  • Install OCaml 3.09 or greater and the accompanying LablGL library, however that is done on your distro.
  • Clone the github repository, or grab the stable source .tgz (sig) and extract it somewhere.
  • cd into the directory
  • run ./make_native.sh
  • Right now there is no 'install', you run out of the working directory
  • Run ./c3a and enjoy!

Playing the Game

Simply double-click on the file c3a.exe in windows, or run ./c3a on linux.

When you run the game, you should initially see a title screen. Click anywhere on the screen to start the game. You will see an overhead view of the board. Blue is "white" and Red is "black", so Blue goes first. Click on the piece you want to move. Click on where you want to move it. If you want to change pieces (that is, you haven't 'taken your hand off the piece yet') simply click on a square that is in invalid move location, such as the piece itself. Repeat for red. Repeat until someone checkmates.

Playing the computer via gnuchess

Chess III Arena can act as a front end to gnuchess, allowing you to play the computer.

On Windows

The easy way:

The easy way will only allow you to play the computer as red, and will not allow you to diable the computer opponent without deleting or renaming the gnuchess executable. If you wish to have the computer play blue, or toggle human versus computer opponents:

  • Install gnuchess.
  • Include gnuchess in your path.
  • Start the game from the command-line with either 'c3a -blue gnuchess' or or '-red gnuchess'.

On Linux

Run the command-line:

./c3a -red gnuchess

to have the computer play red with you going first, or:

./c3a -white gnuchess

to have the computer start first.

Using Id Software Models and Art

If you have a copy of Quake III, you can use the id Software models instead of the openArena models.  They seem to run a little faster and be a little less memory intensive than the openarena models.  More details can be found in the README file in the distribution. 

OpenArena Model Source

This archive (sig) contains the OpenArena models in blender format, the 'source' for the .md3 files.  It is provided for GPL compliance.  You are of course free to download, but it only contains the models used in the C3A distribution.  You may wish to grab a full copy of the OpenArena source from the OpenArena website.

Building on Windows

I'm compiling on the MSVC version of Ocaml. In addition to the base install, you'll need to install LablGL and flexdll. If everything is working, you should be able to run make_native.bat from the source directory.

Enjoy!

-Grant (kgo at grant-olson dot net)


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