Take a break: I built a full Chess & Checkers game inside Grist

Developers
1

:chess_pawn: What if Grist could also help you unwind? For chess and checkers fans, I built a Chess & Checkers widget you can play right inside a document, with a local AI and it’s open source!

Two hosting options available: Vercel for the always-up-to-date version, or GitHub Pages if you prefer a self-hosted version from your own fork.

Widget URL: https://grist-chess-widget.vercel.app or https://isaytoo.github.io/grist-chess-widget/ Source code: https://github.com/isaytoo/grist-chess-widget

Demo: Widget Games - Grist

What it does

  • Two games: Chess and Checkers, switch with a single click

  • A fully local AI: no external API, no server:

    • Minimax with alpha-beta pruning and iterative deepening

    • Transposition table (Zobrist hashing)

    • Quiescence search, killer moves, MVV-LVA move ordering

  • An opening book covering the great classics: Ruy López, Italian, Sicilian, French, Caro-Kann, Queen’s Gambit, Slav, Nimzo- and King’s Indian Defenses, and more, with their main variations.

  • 3 play modes: Human vs AI · Human vs Human · AI vs AI

  • Playing Black: the board flips automatically

  • Drag & drop: works on both desktop and touch

  • Legal move display: small dots and rings to find your way (can be turned off)

  • Analysis panel: score, depth, evaluated nodes, best move, thinking time

  • FEN & PGN export: The chess widget includes two export buttons in the Advice & Analysis panel:

    • :clipboard: FEN: Copies the current position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation. It’s a complete snapshot of the board (piece positions, side to move, available castling, en passant). Great for resuming a game in another program or sharing a specific position to analyze.

    • :clipboard: PGN: Copies the full game history in Portable Game Notation (the list of moves played, with date/player headers). Perfect for replaying, archiving, or having a whole game analyzed.

    • Usage: a single click copies the text to the clipboard, just paste it (Ctrl/Cmd+V) into any chess tool (Lichess, Chess.com, Stockfish…).

  • Undo a move: steps back (your move + the AI’s reply)

  • Grist persistence: 2 tables created automatically (Chess_Games, Chess_Moves), every move is saved

Installation in 3 steps

  1. Add a custom widget to your Grist document

  2. Paste the URL: https://grist-chess-widget.vercel.app or https://isaytoo.github.io/grist-chess-widget/

  3. Grant Full document access (for persistence)

The tables are created automatically on first launch, nothing to set up beforehand.

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Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

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