How to make chess on JavaScript

This article shows how to create a chess game in JavaScript, with a step-by-step example.

Creating a Chess Game using JavaScript

Building a chess game using JavaScript can be a great way to improve your programming skills. It is a complex game with many components that need to be taken into account. In this article, we will look at how to create a basic chess game using JavaScript.

Creating the Board

The first step in creating a chess game is to create the board. To do this, we will use HTML and CSS. We can create an 8x8 table that will represent the board. Each cell in the table will contain a piece or be empty.


<table class="chess-board">
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
    <td class="black"></td>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
</table>

Next, we need to add CSS to the table to style it. We can style each cell of the table with a different color to create the classic chess board look.


.chess-board td {
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
}
.chess-board .black {
  background-color: #000;
}

Placing the Pieces

Once the board is created, we need to add the chess pieces. We can use JavaScript to create an array that holds the pieces and their locations on the board. Each piece is represented by a two-digit number, where the first digit represents the type of piece and the second digit represents the color.


const pieces = [
  [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17], // White pieces
  [20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27], // Black pieces
];

Next, we need to create a function that will place the pieces on the board. This function will take the pieces array and the board table as parameters. It will loop through the array and place the pieces on the board.


function placePieces(pieces, board) {
  for (let i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
    for (let j = 0; j < 8; j++) {
      const piece = pieces[i][j];
      const cell = board.rows[i].cells[j];
      cell.innerHTML = `<div class="piece ${piece}"></div>`;
    }
  }
}

placePieces(pieces, document.querySelector('.chess-board'));

Making Moves

The next step is to create a function that will handle the movement of the pieces. This function will take the board table, the current position of the piece, and the new position as parameters. It will then update the pieces array and the board table accordingly.


function movePiece(board, fromPosition, toPosition) {
  const fromCell = board.rows[fromPosition.row].cells[fromPosition.column];
  const toCell = board.rows[toPosition.row].cells[toPosition.column];
  const piece = fromCell.querySelector('.piece');

  pieces[fromPosition.row][fromPosition.column] = 0;
  pieces[toPosition.row][toPosition.column] = piece.classList[1];

  fromCell.innerHTML = '';
  toCell.appendChild(piece);
}

movePiece(document.querySelector('.chess-board'), { row: 7, column: 1 }, { row: 6, column: 2 });

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at how to create a basic chess game using JavaScript. We started by creating the board and placing the pieces. We then created a function to handle the movement of pieces on the board. With these basics in place, you can now create a full-fledged game of chess.

javascript