Jocly is a Web platform dedicated to 2-players pure abstract strategy games. Using its base Chess module, a large range of variants can be run.
Things you can do with Jocly:
Play directly on the www.jocly.com platform: against the AI, against other
users in live (the opponent must be connected) or turn-based (with email notifications).
Play as mobile apps: currently, most chess variants can be played on Android, iOS (iPhone/iPad) and FirefoxOs.
Embed an existing chess variant on a web site: it only takes 4 lines of HTML to be included. If you know a bit of Javascript programming,
you can also redefine the entire control interface (choose game, computer levels, game options, take-back, ...), show played games from their
PGN representation, implement problems resolution, ... Integration details can be found on
the jquery.jocly github page.
Create your own variant to embed it on a web site: in some aspects, Jocly compares with Zillions of games
as it also provides a generic artificial intelligence. A more complete comparison with ZoG is available on
this page. More info about how to develop own chess variants are
available on the Jocly Wiki.
Available Chess variants
Orthodox chess
Baby chess
Brusky chess
Byzantine chess
Chess 960
Chess attack
Courier chess
Cylinder chess
De Vasa chess
Gardner chess
Glinski chess
Los Alamos chess
Makruk
Malett chess
McCooey chess
Micro chess
Mini 4x4 chess
Mini 4x5 chess
Modern circular chess
Raumschach
Rollerball chess
Shafran chess
Shako chess
Xiang Qi
The source code of all those variants is available to developers and can be reused to create new variants.
Technology
Jocly uses pure HTML5 web technologies. This means the browser does not any plugin like Java or Flash to run.
Most Jocly games, including all Jocly chess variants implement both a 2D and 3D interface. The 3D interface, implemented using WebGL, is the default, but
due to technical constraints, running a game from Internet Explorer, a smartphone or tablet, Safari with WebGL disabled or from a computer with
an old graphic card, the system defaults to 2D.
When playing live on the main site, it is possible to enable the webcam chat, using the WebRTC technology. This way you can see your opponent directly
into the 3D scene, or, if in 2D, next to the board. Note that this feature requires both sides to be running Firefox or Chrome as a browser.
