The ChessMaster

The ChessMaster is a real-time multiplayer chess game you play in the browser with friends. You create a room, send the invite, and the game happens live: every move shows up instantly for both players and for anyone watching. You can play it here, and the code is on GitHub.

Why I built it#

I’ve always loved chess, and building a way to play it with my friends felt like the perfect project.

It’s also a genuinely real-time problem. Most web apps are fine if data shows up a second late. A chess game isn’t. If your opponent moves and you don’t see it, the game is broken.

How it works#

1. Create an account. You land on your own dashboard.
2. See your history. The dashboard lists the games you’ve played.
3. Open a game room and invite your friends.
4. The first friend to join is your opponent.
5. Everyone else who joins is a spectator. They watch the game live, move by move. It’s like having your own live audience.

The real-time part#

Two pieces do most of the work:

• chess.js knows the rules. It checks whether a move is legal and tracks the full game state: whose turn it is, check, checkmate, stalemate and draws. Chess has plenty of edge cases (castling, en passant, promotion), and chess.js handles all of them.
• Supabase Realtime keeps everyone in the room in sync over WebSockets. A move goes out to the opponent and every spectator straight away, with no refreshing and no polling.

Supabase is also the database behind the app.

Under the hood#

• Next.js and TypeScript
• Supabase for the database and Realtime
• chess.js for move validation and game state
• Tailwind CSS for the interface
• Deployed on Vercel

Try it#

Grab a friend, open thechessmaster.vercel.app, create a room and send the invite. If you find a bug, or you beat me, let me know on X.