Pixel Chess

A terminal-based chess game built in Rust with pixel art pieces, mouse support, and full PGN save/load functionality.

Quickstart

# Install from crates.io
cargo install pixel-chess
pixel-chess

# Or clone and build
git clone https://github.com/Spyabo/pixel-chess.git
cd pixel-chess
cargo run --release

Requires Rust (1.70+).

Features

• Pixel art pieces - Detailed 8x8 pixel sprites rendered using Unicode half-blocks
• Mouse & keyboard - Click to select/move pieces or use arrow keys + Enter
• Move history panel - Scrollable list with algebraic notation, click to rewind
• Board flipping - Manual flip (f) or auto-flip on turn change (F)
• Pawn promotion - Modal to choose Q/R/B/N with keyboard shortcuts
• Save/Load PGN - Games saved with player names and timestamps
• Last move highlight - Yellow squares show the previous move
• Check/checkmate/stalemate detection - With game over modal

Controls

Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs              # Entry point, CLI args
├── tui.rs               # Terminal UI, input handling, rendering
├── board/
│   ├── mod.rs           # Board state, move execution, game logic
│   └── position.rs      # Square coordinates (e.g., e4 -> (4,3))
├── pieces/mod.rs        # Piece types, colors, FEN parsing
├── moves/mod.rs         # Move struct with from/to positions
├── pgn.rs               # PGN export/import, player names
└── pixel_art/
    ├── board_widget.rs  # Main board renderer with sprites
    ├── sprites.rs       # 8x8 pixel art for each piece
    ├── colours.rs       # Square colors (light/dark/highlight)
    ├── captured_bar.rs  # Shows captured pieces + material
    ├── move_history.rs  # Scrollable move list widget
    ├── promotion_modal.rs
    ├── save_game_modal.rs
    ├── load_game_modal.rs
    └── game_over_modal.rs

Key Implementation Details

Pixel Art Rendering (pixel_art/sprites.rs): Each piece is an 8x8 grid of Pixel enums (Transparent/Primary/Outline/Accent). Two vertical pixels are combined into one terminal character using Unicode half-blocks (▀), giving 8x8 pixel resolution in 8x4 character cells.

Move Validation (board/mod.rs): Legal moves are computed by generating pseudo-legal moves, then filtering out those that would leave the king in check. Special moves (castling, en passant, promotion) are handled explicitly.

PGN Parsing (pgn.rs): Algebraic notation like Nf3 is parsed by finding which knight can legally move to f3. Disambiguation (Rab1) is supported for ambiguous moves.

Building for Release

cargo build --release

The optimized binary will be at target/release/cli-chess (~3MB). This runs significantly faster than debug builds.

License

MIT