Super secret PC update with our new AI player finally released. Mac and Linux to follow soon. Shhhh...

Release 1.1.0

New Features
- New animations
- Post game analysis board for played games
- In game analysis for spectated games
- Analysis games support forked game histories
- Can view board state for previous ply's
- Sandbox supports forked game history's
- Sandbox can force measurement outcomes
- Multiplayer "dedicated" games. Dedicated server controls game state.
- Added fen and move copy button to game and sandbox
- Added ability to paste a fen + moves into sandbox
- Local Play, for side by side multiplayer
- New quick start tutorial
- In Sandbox and in Analysis mode, you can force measurement outcomes using the .m0, .m?, and .m1 buttons
- Squashed several bugs and even a few quantum bugs - Sorry! No more duplicating Kings with entangled castling.

[h2]New Animations[/h2]

The game now shows "conflict" animations that result in measurements of the game state. We hope this helps players understand when and why measurements occur.

[h2]Analyzing Games [/h2]

After a completed match, you can now analyze the game, and explore different moves!
While spectating you can swap over to analysis mode at any time and explore different measurement outcomes! While analyzing a game, click a previous ply to explore an alternate history from that point.

[h2]Dedicated Multiplayer[/h2]

Dedicated games hold and modify the state of the game on a dedicated server, instead of local machines. This sets us up for some other cool features in the future.

[h2]Local Play[/h2]

Side by side let's you play against a friend on the same screen, and lays the groundwork for a re-release of an AI opponent.

We also packed in a lot of bug fixes. When you find more, be sure to let us know in our Discord!

As always, thank you for your continued support.

Some updates to fix a number of errors and bugs we're seeing in the logs. This should (hopefully) fix the multiplayer desync bug.

Added Features
[h2]Asynchronous Multiplayer[/h2]
You can now play in "Correspondence" mode. These games have up to 3-day turn timers, and you can play more than one at a time.
[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
There are two separate matchmaking queues. One for real time games, and one for async games.
[h2]Move Arrows[/h2]
Shift-click to draw arrows between squares
Visual Updates
Added piece animations

Here is a quick update to add some quality of life improvements for new players. Now, the first time you open the game, the help menu will pop up. It has a handy link, right at the top of the page, to join our Discord community! This is the best place to find other players, and get help, right now.



We've also added a couple of multiplayer improvements, with low time warnings, and a more obvious visual and sound effect when it is your turn.



We're working hard to get correspondence games in, and matchmaking. In the mean time, we hope the new additions will make things a little easier.

The time has come! Quantum Realm Games has partnered with Arcanforge to bring Quantum Chess to the next level. Here's what is going on.

Going Quantum
In 2019, we were approached by Google AI Quantum to see if we could run Quantum Chess on their quantum computing hardware. In August of this year, we succesfully demonstrated the fruits of that labor at the Google AI Quantum Summer Symposium! Check out the video of our presentation.

[previewyoutube=ec-Mb8OJuRg;full][/previewyoutube]

This success gave us the momentum we needed to push Quantum Chess to reach its potential. We were able to secure generous funding from IQIM, and an amazing development partner, to bring you the next iteration of the game.

New Moves
The old quantum move has seen its last days. We've replaced it with the new split and merge moves!

[h2]Splitting the Universe[/h2]
With the new split move, players have the power to create superposition, where their pieces exists in multiple squares at the same time.



You perform a split move in two steps:

Mouse-down on the first target, drag to the second target square, and release.


[h2]Merging the Universe[/h2]
With the merge move, players have the power to combine a split piece back together.



You perform a merge move in two steps:

Select the single target square.


Entanglement and Phase Display
The game has always been built on top of a simulation of a quantum state. But before, we didn't have a great way to show that information. Now we do! If you right-click on a piece in superposition, it will show the relative entanglement and phase display

[h2]Entanglement[/h2]
The outer ring shows whether other pieces are entangled with the one you selected.



If the rings are the same color, the pieces are entangled to exist on the same board(s).

[h2]Phase[/h2]
The "radar" wedges show the phase rotation of other pieces, relative to the one you selected.



The relative phase can change how pieces interfere with each other, leading to unexpected outcomes.

Sandbox Mode
With sandbox mode, you can drag pieces onto the board and experiment!



You can reach sandbox mode from the side drawer in the main menu.



Multiplayer
Gone are the days of unstable multiplayer connections. We've adopted a completely new networking architecture. It is now easier to get a game going with a fiend, or a member of our Discord community, and even to spectate other players.



Tournament


A great way to see multiplayer in action is by watching the first ever Quantum Chess tournament, which was live on Anna Rudolf's twitch stream! We saw some new strategies, and live demonstrations of running on actual quantum computing hardware, and even a cameo from Alex Winter! Check out the vods.
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Final

The Future
So, what's next? A lot. Pushing into the next stage of development, we have a number of features and collaborations on the roadmap.

[h2]Game Features[/h2]

• We're revisiting AI, this time with more brain power and some donated compute resources.
  
• We're expanding and improving the multiplayer experience with features like chat and match making.
  
• We're developing a new game mode that involves Quantum Chess puzzles.
  
• We're working toward a mobile release.
  

[h2]Collaborations[/h2]

• We're continuing work with Google AI Quantum, to expand the ability to run on quantum computing hardware.
  
• We're going to be doing more quantum computing workshops with Qubit by Qubit, aimed at high school students.
  
• We've been contacted by a number of other educational interests, and will be exploring applications of Quantum Chess with them.
  
• We're looking at other ways to collaborate with Anna Rudolf, and the chess community at large.
  

Honestly, that is just a taste of what we're looking at going forward. We're very excited to bring this next iteration of Quantum Chess to the world. If you want to keep active with the community, make sure and join our Discord server. There you can leave feedback and bug reports, and find other players to jump in a game with. See you in the quantum realm!

It has been a little while since the last update so I wanted to give players a quick overview of the work being done.

AI is the big thing. We now have a fairly stable AI for the next version. I still wouldn't call it "good", but it isn't "bad" either. It makes some fairly intelligent plays and for the most part avoids obvious mistakes. It is also capable of making quantum moves. It is based on a standard chess AI, so players familiar with chess may notice some patterns of play often seen there.

I've also settled on a new networking architecture for multiplayer that should alleviate a lot of the connection headaches and allow for the easy implementation of some nice features like games that persist through different play sessions. I'll keep updating as work here progresses.

Again, thank you to all of the players for your continued support and patience.

Hey everyone, here's another update on progress.
I've been hard at work on getting the AI up and running, but debugging was taking a long time. So I took a sidetrack and implemented a long requested feature, sandbox mode. Don't be too hard on the look of the new UI, it is being updated, but here is a sneak peek at Sandbox Mode functionality!



This mode serves multitple purposes. It will be a great way to explore different dynamics from specific board states. It is also an incredible tool in both debugging (AI and otherwise), and in helping develop the new tutorial. I hope you will all enjoy it!

Relative phase is an important concept in quantum physics because it can change the outcome of an operation through interference. In Quantum Chess, moves are operations, and their outcomes can change if the underlying state has certain phase characteristics.

Until now the player has only been presented with probability information. This could lead to confusing situations where moves appeared to have no effect. After some careful thought, and some math, the game can now display some basic relative phase information. It isn't complete, but it should be relevant to a lot of moves. Here is an example.

The Merge move is designed to undo a Split move. If used immediately after a split it should result in 100% of the piece being in the target square (assuming there are no pieces blocking the paths). Here we can see how it acts on the queen.

Notice the yellow lines on the queens involved in the move are pointing in the same direction. We call this being "in phase".

Now if we perform a Standard move for the queen in d2, moving it to d3, and then perform the Merge move, we get something different.

Notice that the standard move has caused the yellow lines to no longer point in the same direction. The piece that was moved picked up a relative phase of pi/2 compared to the one that didn't move.

Phase can be a complex topic. But if you play around with moves, and take notice of how the phase indicators relate to each other, you can gain an intuition for how it will change the outcomes. This is the first successful attempt at getting meaningful phase information into the game, and it will likely evolve.

I can't wait to get this out there for people to play with!

Hey everyone, I wanted to show you what the new quantum moves will be like when the next version is released. As stated previously the "double" move will be going away. It will be replaced by two quantum moves.

The Split move will allow a piece to split and occupy two different positions. This is similar to the "double" move except there is no possibility that the piece didn't move, and it can only reach one standard move away.



The Merge move is designed to undo a Split. The player will select two squares with the same type of piece, then select a single "target" that is reachable by both.



You can also see the experimental phase indicator in these gifs (more on that later)!

It was brought to my attention that Australia was unable to access the game. I've submitted a change that should fix the problem.

So I have seen an influx of new players and I wanted to let everyone know this is still an ongoing project, and due to some life changes it is getting a lot more love and attention than it has in the past months. Here is where we are at right now.

Our most active community members hang out in our discord channel which can be found here

The currently available game features the "double" quantum move, a buggy networked play experience, and an AI that doesn't understand quantum moves. But it is playable and in my opinion quite fun. Some people have no problem establishing networked games, others can't seem to get a stable game going no matter what they try. The best way to get a networked game going is to ask in the discord.

The next version of the game is under heavy development. It will feature a much stronger AI that will be able to make quantum moves. It will also use a different rule set. Instead of the "double" quantum move it will be a "split" move. The piece will always move, and it will split to occupy two different positions that are one classical move away. A new networking infrastructure is being investigated as well.

To keep up with the latest in ongoing development, and add your input as the game evolves, please join the Discord community. I will try and keep updates here a bit more consistently.

Thanks For The Interest And Support!

Hey everyone, here is a quick update. We're debugging an internal test build with the new engine. There are some strange bugs popping up, we're trying to track them down before releasing the build. The new build will support a new rule set. Quantum Moves will no longer be double moves. We now support two types of quantum moves: Split and Merge.

Split Moves allow you to split a piece to occupy a superposition of two squares that are reachable in a single standard move. There is no more probability that you did not move at all.

Merge Moves allow you to select two squares partially occupied by the same piece type, and try to merge them together into a single square that is reachable by both in a single standard move.

These descriptions are accurate on an otherwise empty board, but as with the previous quantum rules the exact state of the board and interference effects can lead to some unexpected behavior.

This is a pretty big change, but it is for the better. The previous double move variant had some major issues that were hindering the development of a fast engine. The new move rules also make it easier to consider the possibility of going truly quantum on a quantum computer some day.

We're trying to get this new version out as soon as we can. Thanks for the patience and support.

-QC Team

Hey everyone,

Just a quick update. Some developments in the past few months, and the desire to optimize for performance, have led to nearly a complete redesign of the game. The next release version will have a different rule set, with the quantum move being changed from its current form. Instead of a double move, it will be more like a split move. The piece will always move, but the player will chose two target locations to then occupy in superposition. A lot of work is being done under the hood, and this change may still take a bit before it sees the light of day. We're keeping at it.

Thanks for the support and for playing!

Just a quick update. Progress is being made on the C++ version of the engine. We've settled on a significantly different representation for a board superposition that gives us more control over exactly what data needs to be accessed and manipulated throughout the game. We also have access to some pretty cool optimization techniques. Some of the core functionality is already running up to 30 times faster than before.

There is still a good amount to be done though. The representation and basic move functionality are there. Quantum move path calculation and execution is in the works. Next step will be measurement, and then we have to tie the engine into the existing interface, among other things.

Thank you again for the continued support.
-QC Team

Just a quick update. Progress is being made on the C++ version of the engine. We've settled on a significantly different representation for a board superposition that gives us more control over exactly what data needs to be accessed and manipulated throughout the game. We also have access to some pretty cool optimization techniques. Some of the core functionality is already running up to 30 times faster than before.

There is still a good amount to be done though. The representation and basic move functionality are there. Quantum move path calculation and execution is in the works. Next step will be measurement, and then we have to tie the engine into the existing interface, among other things.

Thank you again for the continued support.
-QC Team

Hey everyone!

First off, I'm extremely sorry for the lack of communication here. We're decently active in the discord channel with updates, but I sometimes forget that not everyone is there. So here is an update.

A while back we posted an update that the AI was able to make quantum moves and that it would be seen in the next patch. This is still true. The AI has been able to make quantum moves for a while now in internal test versions, but it is incredibly slow. At the time it was thought that just some performance optimizations would fix this and we would be able to release the update after a couple of weeks of profiling.

Profiling and optimization did help, but not nearly enough (think 30 seconds to 1 minute per move for complex positions). After a few months of going round and round with optimizing and rethinking and rewriting large parts of the engine structure it has come to a critical point. What the engine really needs is ground up overhaul. Everything from how the board state is represented internally to how move outcomes are calculated needs to be redone and optimized.

To that end I've started a ground up rewrite of the engine side of things in C++. This will give us access to some of the language's innate better performance, and allow us to use a lot of the optimization techniques already developed for other fast Chess engines written in C++. As a nice side effect this will also open the door for running the engine as a standalone which could make a future mobile version easier to implement.

Going forward I'll try to be more diligent about posting updates here.

Thank you everyone for your continued support,
-Chris

Hey everyone!

First off, I'm extremely sorry for the lack of communication here. We're decently active in the discord channel with updates, but I sometimes forget that not everyone is there. So here is an update.

A while back we posted an update that the AI was able to make quantum moves and that it would be seen in the next patch. This is still true. The AI has been able to make quantum moves for a while now in internal test versions, but it is incredibly slow. At the time it was thought that just some performance optimizations would fix this and we would be able to release the update after a couple of weeks of profiling.

Profiling and optimization did help, but not nearly enough (think 30 seconds to 1 minute per move for complex positions). After a few months of going round and round with optimizing and rethinking and rewriting large parts of the engine structure it has come to a critical point. What the engine really needs is ground up overhaul. Everything from how the board state is represented internally to how move outcomes are calculated needs to be redone and optimized.

To that end I've started a ground up rewrite of the engine side of things in C++. This will give us access to some of the language's innate better performance, and allow us to use a lot of the optimization techniques already developed for other fast Chess engines written in C++. As a nice side effect this will also open the door for running the engine as a standalone which could make a future mobile version easier to implement.

Going forward I'll try to be more diligent about posting updates here.

Thank you everyone for your continued support,
-Chris

We have noticed an increase in disconnect reports. We think we have nailed down the problem to bandwidth and are working on a solution. Thank you for your patience.

We have noticed an increase in disconnect reports. We think we have nailed down the problem to bandwidth and are working on a solution. Thank you for your patience.

Hey everyone!

We wanted to drop an update so you know what is going on. We've made progress on the AI, but it is being stubborn. It makes quantum moves now, but it is slow. We're working on optimizing it before we launch the next patch. Thanks for your patience!

-QC Team

Hey everyone!

We wanted to drop an update so you know what is going on. We've made progress on the AI, but it is being stubborn. It makes quantum moves now, but it is slow. We're working on optimizing it before we launch the next patch. Thanks for your patience!

-QC Team

Hey everyone. We've been hard at work with some bug fixes and an update to AI! Next patch will have a more skilled AI that can make quantum moves. Thanks for your patience.

Hey everyone. We've been hard at work with some bug fixes and an update to AI! Next patch will have a more skilled AI that can make quantum moves. Thanks for your patience.

We've had a number of reports of people having difficulty connecting to, or being disconnected from, online games. Here are a few things you can try to fix the issue.

We've had a number of reports of people having difficulty connecting to, or being disconnected from, online games. Here are a few things you can try to fix the issue.

We just got another update in before Christmas!

Patch 0.1.6200:

• Added more content to the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a bug in the tutorial when clicking "Play Again" after killing the king.
  
• Minor UI updates.
  

• There is an issue with the back button on the Lobby
  
• It is possible to break the AI player by using a lot of superposition
  
• The AI player could be better at the game
  
• The previous game state sometimes gets carried over into a new game and is reset upon starting.
  

Thank you everyone for your continued feedback. We just put out another patch with some bug fixes, UI updates, and tutorial updates.

Patch 0.1.6198:

• Added content to the tutorial to help explain the quantum move, entanglement, and measurement a bit better (more to come).
  
• Fixed bug that prevented players from making moves after completing a game and choosing "Play Again"
  
• Adjusted some times in the UI to make the result of moves and subsequent measurements more obvious.
  
• Minor UI QOL updates.
  

• Still an issue with pressing back from the lobby
  

We just made some changes that will hopefully fix the issue that was preventing some players using MAC from downloading the game. If you are playing on a MAC and previously had trouble, please try reinstalling Quantum Chess. If you still have trouble, please let us know.

We just pushed our first Early Access patch to Steam. If you do not receive it right away, please allow some time to propagate. Note, the following is not necessarily a complete list.

Patch 0.1.6190:

• Changed time for tutorial text to 20 seconds. User input can still skip early.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause pieces to flip upside-down sometimes.
  
• Fixed an issue with the chat log text stretching the full height of the screen.
  
• Adjusted colors in the chat log.
  
• Added version text to the Main Menu.
  

• Sometimes pressing back from the Lobby scene does not return to the Main Menu. Pressing back twice sometimes works.
  
• Sometimes killing a player's king does not result in the end of the game.
  
• There appear to be some latency issues for certain servers/regions that make it difficult to create games.
  
• The host of a game currently receives no feedback if the client drops.
  
• Chat tab should flash on receiving new messages.
  
• The AI player is not very good at the game.
  
• The tutorial does not do enough to teach the player how to play.
  

We've only been in early access for 3 hours and already have a ton of great feedback. We're working on getting some updates and fixes into the game right away. Some of these include:

- Fixes for chat UI
- Fixes for pieces appearing upside down
- Adjustments to the tutorial (timing of messages, etc.)

More is coming. Thank you for the valuable feedback!