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Alternatives

Products that do what Family Chess: Play across firewalls and Internet cultures does

Hi HN! I built a simple chess game so that my son in Singapore can play chess with his grandfather in China. Why? There is currently no service or open source software that has all of the following: * All processing and assets on a single server (Critical to workaround a firewall) * No email account required (Chinese Internet services typically login via WeChat) * Works on Android browser * Simple to install and config I built it, together with Claude Code, using simple and boring technologies (Django + Client-side JS). I hope that when you use it, you will find it simple to understand…

  1. 1OO

    Hi HN! I'm the developer of rdx, a mildly popular ad-free, privacy and user friendly Reddit client. This time, I made something for a very specific use case: solving chess puzzles with no internet. Why? Well, my Wi-Fi is terrible in the bathroom—and that's where I do some of my best thinking. I tried printing out “mate in X” puzzles to solve offline, but they weren’t fun without interaction. So I built OffChess. OffChess is an iPhone/Android app that contains over 100,000 chess puzzles, fully offline and completely ad-free. You can solve puzzles by category (Mate in…

    2025 · offchess.com

  2. 2CA

    2020 · rootshirechess.glitch.me

  3. 3

    I posted once before but wanted to share again because a lot has changed. There's now a fairly strong bot to play against (contributed by a community member) and also correspondence games. The combination of these things helps a bit in finding people to play against.

    11d ago · voronoigo.com

  4. 4OC

    My personal project: https://github.com/leonidasdeim/chasse Goal was to build session based chessboard game without any rules - to play just like oldschool over the board. Just create new board and share link with a friend. I would appreciate any feedback and github star. Thanks!

    2023 · chasse.fun

  5. 5CS

    Chess, but each square also follows the rules of Conway's Game of Life. Only your own pieces count as neighbours when deciding births/deaths. For births, an empty square must have 3 neighbours for 2 consecutive turns. For deaths, a piece must have 3 neighbours for 3 consecutive turns. This is a simple proof of concept I made with python and curses. You can play with a friend locally or over a socket connection. Controls: Arrow keys to move the cursor, enter/space to select and move a piece, u or backspace to undo a move, r to redo a move, q or escape to quit, s to perform a move…

    2023 · gist.github.com

  6. 6IT

    I built 1e4.ai - a chess web app where you play against neural networks trained to mimic human Lichess players at specific Elo ranges. There's a separate model for each 100-point rating bucket from ~800 to 2200+, and the bots not only choose human-like moves but also burn clock time, play worse under time pressure, and blunder in human-like ways. Live demo: https://1e4.ai Code: https://github.com/thomasj02/1e4_ai A few things that might be interesting: - Trained on almost a full year of Lichess blitz games, around 1B total games - Architecture is an a small…

    May 2026

  7. 7

    Play real-time chess with friends and players worldwide.

    Jan 2026 · play.google.com

  8. 8

    Play chess online or offline, analyze games with an engine.

    Jun 2026 · play.google.com

  9. 9

    Play chess in your browser – with Stockfish AI power.

    2025

  10. 10CT

    I continue my experiment of transposing classic games onto an irregular grid. I've previously released variants of minesweeper and checkers. And now I'd like to share my variant of Chess. Chess can be a pretty punishing game, but I thought this was nevertheless a way to make it even more challenging by making it trickier to anticipate your opponent, even though both players still have the same information. From the playtests I've done, that challenge is pretty compelling. It also seems to be more fun at 2 people, where both players keep surprising one another.

    2024 · polyreplay.com

  11. 11

    Play chess online for free against computer or friend!

    Jan 2026 · free-online-chess.com

  12. 12

    Play Chess Online. No Sign-Up. No Ratings. Just Play.

    19d ago · gmchess.online

  13. 13

    Chess — but a mini-game decides every capture

    Jun 2026 · dualchess.com

  14. 14

    Play free online chess vs powerful AI. No login.

    Jan 2026 · chessmoveexpert.com

  15. 15

    A simple chess app built for kids who can't read yet

    Jul 2026 · play.google.com

  16. 16
    DuoQi1

    Chess & Xiangqi on two phones—no internet needed

    4d ago · apps.apple.com

  17. 17

    Free browser chess for kids — no signup, no ads in the way

    May 2026 · spinthecrocodile.com

  18. 18NB

    We at Semicolon Developers have released two player version of Nepali board game Baghchal[1]. It can be played at: http://obaghchal.com Game is working fine in Chrome and Firefix latest builds. There are few glitches but if you have ever played Baghchal I'd love to hear your feedback on the game play online. I'd like to credit HN for all the encouragement. I have promised myself to post a Show HN thread with some cool work and this is our first attempt. Deployment wise I am having some difficulties in setting up server. I think we'd have problem scaling it up. If any Nepali hacker is…

    2012

  19. 19

    Play chess with friends anywhere + no internet required

    May 2026 · play.google.com

  20. 20AC

    Hello, This is something I've wanted to build for awhile (first bought the domain in 2020 (then lost it for a year+)). It's a tactics solver on each new tab page. There are 5 modes of play: Easy (<1200 elo) Medium (1200-1800) Hard (1800-2400) Expert (2400+) Speedrun (solve as many puzzles as possible in 60 seconds). I'm having a ton of fun with it, and definitely noticing improvements with actual games (definitely solved the most puzzles in my life while developing this extension). If you check it out, please let me know what you think. Any feedback is good!

    Apr 2026 · leetchess.com

  21. 21

    Play real-time multiplayer chess with friends or AI

    May 2026 · superchess.iamraj.dev

  22. 22

    Four-player chess in your browser. One link, no signup.

    10d ago · chessbox.app

  23. 23

    Meet Strangers! Play Chess! Face to Face!

    Apr 2026 · chessorix.com

  24. 24

    Play against Stockfish engine, get best hints.

    2025

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