Version 2 has many improvements over previous versions, including:
- A vastly improved user interface with better graphics and more features
- In addition to providing an AI you can play against, ChessV 2 can also be used as a GUI to control other engines that support XBoard protocol version 2
- The program is now a .NET Framework application, written in C#, allowing better cross-platform support. It can run on non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux, using Mono
- ChessV 2 is far more universal, allowing support for many more types of games. Here are some of the features with examples of games that are now supported:
- Games with multiple boards (example: Alice Chess)
- Games with multiple moves (example: Marseillais Chess)
- Games with multi-path pieces (example: Falcon Chess)
- Games with larger boards (example: Omega Chess)
- Games with unusual symmetry (example: Viking Chess)
- A scripting language, providing limited support for defining custom variants without needing to recompile ChessV itself. This feature is in early development and subject to change. For examples, look in the Include directory.
For really deep analysis, use of the old version, for games that it supports, may still be preferable. Fortunately, there are now more XBoard-compliant engines that support chess variants and can be controlled with ChessV. The Windows installer distribution includes Fairy-Max.
Please see the ChessV website to download the program and/or source code. Feedback is always welcome. Enjoy