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Introducing BoardBlitz - An online multiplayer chess game

Introducing BoardBlitz - An online multiplayer chess game

Play chess with your friends online for free!

Published Jan 14, 2025

Inspiration

Chess has stood the test of time as a game that challenges intellect, strategy, and foresight. With the rise of online multiplayer platforms, we saw an opportunity to modernize this classic game while enhancing its accessibility and interactivity. The idea of creating BoardBlitz, an online multiplayer chess app, was born out of a passion for blending tradition with technology, creating a seamless platform for friends to connect and compete.

What it does

BoardBlitz is an online multiplayer chess app that allows users to play live games with their friends. The platform ensures real-time gameplay using socket.io, providing a smooth and lag-free experience. Players can invite friends and enjoy features like:
  • Play chess with a friend in real-time.
  • Allow other friends to spectate the ongoing game.
  • Chat with your opponent and spectators while playing.
  • Save game records for later review.
  • Review saved records as though you were experiencing the game in real-time.

How we built it

To bring BoardBlitz to life, we leveraged several cutting-edge technologies and AWS services:

Amazon Q Developer

  • Helped eliminate tedious tasks like fixing bugs and code optimization, allowing us to focus on higher-value tasks.
  • Accelerated our software development life cycle (SDLC) by offering interactive step-by-step instructions and expert recommendations directly in our IDE.
  • Used the /dev command heavily to assist in writing robust tests for the application, ensuring high-quality code. We also used it to suggest code for features we had no idea how to implement although we knew what we wanted. Using Amazon Q helped refine our ideas and write good maintainable code. We also used it to debug issues in our code especially when the tests were not running. Although simple, the code for uploading images to our S3 bucket was written entirely by Q, making it easier for us as we had never done that before.

Amazon EC2

We hosted our server on AWS EC2, configuring it with Nginx as a reverse proxy to handle incoming requests efficiently. This setup ensured seamless real-time gameplay and reliable server performance.

Amazon S3

Used to securely store user-generated content like avatars and game logs, providing quick and scalable access to these assets.

Amazon RDS Database

Implemented AWS RDS for storing user data, game history, and match statistics. This ensured data consistency and optimized performance, even with concurrent user access.

Frontend

The frontend was built using Next.js, which allowed us to create a highly responsive and dynamic interface. Tailwind CSS was utilized for styling, enabling quick and consistent UI design.

Backend

The backend was developed with Express.js, handling server logic and API integrations effectively. Real-time functionality was powered by Socket.io, ensuring synchronized gameplay and chat between users.

Test it out

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