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ChessCraft

ChessCraft

by jpenilla • Downloads: 0 • Followers: 0
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ChessCraft

ChessCraft is a Paper plugin that adds in-world chess matches against other players and chess engines. With ChessCraft, players can challenge each other to intense chess battles in a Minecraft environment.

Features

  • In-world chess matches, reminiscent of life-size chess boards.
  • Pieces: Supports both custom models through a resource pack (linked below), and using textured player heads for resource pack free use.
  • Automatic downloading of the correct Stockfish (chess engine powering ChessCraft) executable for your platform.
  • Stores history of paused/incomplete and completed matches
  • Export matches in PGN format for external analysis
  • Elo rating system for PvP matches with server leaderboard

Download

Downloads can be obtained here on Modrinth.

Development builds

Development builds are available at https://jenkins.jpenilla.xyz/job/ChessCraft

Installation

To install ChessCraft, simply drop the plugin into your Paper server's plugins folder. The configuration can be adjusted at plugins/ChessCraft/config.yml.

By default, ChessCraft will be configured for use with a resource pack containing custom models for chess pieces. It can be downloaded here. You can either have your players manually install it, or set it as your server resource pack/merge its contents into your existing server resource pack.

Usage

First, you must create a chessboard by standing at the desired location for the southwest corner of the board and using the /chess create_board <board_name> <facing> command.

Then, use the /chess challenge player|cpu commands to challenge an opponent. That's all! Now you can right-click the pieces to start making moves!

Chess boards will not automatically place or remove blocks from the world (besides the pieces if configured to use block pieces), they will only manage pieces. This is to allow building your chess board in any way you like. However, the /chess set_checkerboard command can be used to automatically place blocks for a standard board.

All Versions

+ Add Version
Name Game version Platforms Published Downloads Actions
26.3 26.2 26.1.x +1
Paper
16h ago 1
26.2 26.1.x 1.21.x
Paper
16h ago 1
26.1.x 1.21.x
Paper
16h ago 1
1.21.x
Paper
16h ago 1
1.21.x
Paper
16h ago 1
1.21.4
Paper
16h ago 1
1.20.2 1.19.4
Paper
16h ago 1
1.20.2 1.19.4
Paper
16h ago 1
1.20.1 1.19.4
Paper
16h ago 1
1.20.1 1.19.4
Paper
16h ago 1
1.19.4
Paper
16h ago 1
1.19.3
Paper
16h ago 1
1.19.3
Paper
16h ago 1
[0.5.6] chesscraft 0.5.6 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed


[0.5.5] chesscraft 0.5.5 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed


[0.5.4] chesscraft 0.5.4 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed


[0.5.3] chesscraft 0.5.3 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed


[0.5.2] chesscraft 0.5.2 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed


[0.5.1] chesscraft 0.5.1 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed

## New Contributors

[0.5.0] chesscraft 0.5.0 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## What's Changed

## New Contributors

[0.4.0] 0.4.0 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## Changelog

### Added
  • Board display system
  • Currently includes position label, board status, and game message log displays
  • See screenshot below
  • CPU vs CPU matches through /chess cpu_match
  • Automatic CPU vs CPU matches on configured boards when players are nearby
  • Fifty-move rule enforcement
  • Threefold repetition rule enforcement
  • Support for automatic download of Stockfish 16+
  • /chess cancel_match admin command

### Changed

### Fixed
  • Automatically downloaded engines not being set to executable
  • Display entity pieces flashing on moves (fixed by reusing existing entities when possible)
  • Orientation issues with display entity pieces across Minecraft versions

![0 4](https://github.com/jpenilla/chesscraft/assets/11360596/ba265bf6-dff3-4b6a-90b7-8fa9388d6c73)

[0.3.2] 0.3.2 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## Changelog

### Fixed
  • DISPLAY_ENTITY piece handler resulting in upside-down chess pieces in 1.20+
[0.3.1] 0.3.1 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## Changelog

### Fixed
  • Automatic downloads of Stockfish versions 15.1 and earlier
  • Stockfish removed old downloads from their site, which broke the automatic downloader. We now use archive.org which has many but not all versions archived.
  • Automatic downloads of Stockfish versions 16 and newer are not yet implemented. See #17 for more details.
[0.3.0] 0.3.0 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## Changelog

### Added
  • Display and Interaction entity based PieceHandlers, this is now the default mode in the config. This mode will only work on Minecraft 1.19.4+
  • Board scaling; 1x scale is the original mode, 2x scale will have 2x2 block positions, 5x 5x5 block positions, etc.
  • Only the new Display/Interaction entity PieceHandler can properly scale pieces with the board

![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/11360596/225754683-8219bd6d-7f76-4515-a255-20440f52ecd4.png)

[0.2.0] 0.2.0 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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## Changelog

### Added
  • Time controls
  • /chess deny command
  • /chess reset_board <board> [--clear] command
  • bStats

### Changed
  • Check for Paper and print a friendly error message when it's missing instead of crashing with a cryptic class loading error

### Fixed
  • Resource pack piece models being 1px into the ground
  • Chess engine error stream not being handled
[0.1.0] 0.1.0 by jpenilla on Oct 15, 2026
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First public release of ChessCraft!

Report any bugs or make suggestions at the [issues page](https://github.com/jpenilla/chesscraft/issues)
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