Ceibal-Chess

(La versión en español de esta página se encuentra aquí)

This project is about creating a Chess activity for the Sugar environment to teach kids the basic rules of the game and allow them to play with one another and vs. the CPU.

Ceibal-Chess is a brand new Chess project that aims to produce a chess Activity for the Sugar and the XO

Features

• Free as in Freedom (GPLv2)
• Designed from the ground up to work on the XO.
• Distributed as an Activity Bundle (.xo)
• Completely developed in Python + PyGame.
• Integration with GNU Chess.
• Player vs Player mode (in one Laptop, using DBus planned).
• Valid movements highlighting.
• Enemy movements highlighting.
• Portable: known to work on various Linux distros and Mac OS X.
• Easy to learn and use, without complex menus or options.

The project is still in its early stages, with some known bugs open, but it's reaching an stage where heavy testing for bug-fixing would be extremely beneficial.

The source code is stored in google code. Anonymous checkout using Subversion is enabled, and the code includes an script for automatically creating the Activity Bundle which can be used to deploy the Activity on XO laptops.

You can contact the project administrator at asegovi AT gmail DOT com. There is also a google group, called ceibal-chess.

Download

• Get the developer beta over here! (recommended)

• If you have Subversion installed and like living on the edge, get the latest version by using the following command:

svn checkout http://ceibal-chess.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ ceibal-chess

Running on Windows

Download the developer beta (or get it via subversion), and double click the file called "main" (main.py), after having installed Python.

Running on Linux and Mac OS X

Get the developer beta or the latest source code version using Subversion and run the main.py python script.

Installing on the XO

First get the latest source code version for Linux or Mac OS X, then run the createbundle.sh BASH script. The created .xo bundle will be stored in the bundle/ directory. Copy this file to the XO and open it using Firefox or running the sugar-bundle-install command from the Terminal Activity.

Once installed, restart Sugar by pressing Control + Alt + Erase. The Ceibal-Chess icon should appear among the other activities.

It is also possible to run Ceibal-Chess from the Terminal Activity in the same way that it's run on Linux, provided you first unset the SUGAR_BUNDLE_PATH environment variable.

For more info, please visit: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ceibal_Jam

Hardware Requirements

Designed to run on the XO, Ceibal-Chess has a small memory footprint and uses little CPU, saving battery life. The minimal hardware requirements to run Ceibal-Chess include:

• 500 MHz processor.
• 32MB RAM (64MB recommended).
• 20MB of free disk space (less when installed in the XO).

Software Requirements

Ceibal-Chess is developed in the Python programming language using the Pygame graphics library. These are the only requirements.

• Python 2.x (not 3.0).
• Pygame 1.8.1.

Notes:

• Make sure you download the Pygame library version that matches your Python version.
• Linux users usually have Python installed and can get Pygame using apt-get or yum.
• XO users already have both dependencies -no need to install anything-.
• Windows and Mac users will have to get both packages.

NOT FOR PRODUCTION

Ceibal-Chess is still a work in progress and as such, it's still not ready for prime time. You can expect the application to crash, dumping lots of debug files and might not be for the faint-hearted. However, if you like living on the edge, and want to see Ceibal-Chess reach production level soon, get the code and start playing! All feedback you send us will be really helpful for making Ceibal-Chess reach its best very soon!

More Information

FAQ (English)

The English version of the FAQ is here: http://code.google.com/p/ceibal-chess/wiki/FaqEn

FAQ (Español)

La versión en Español del FAQ se encuentra aquí: http://code.google.com/p/ceibal-chess/wiki/FAQSp.

Facebook Group (Español)

Join us at the Facebook group, over here.

Screenshots

Main Menu

In-Game