The Big Bang Update - Atomic Chess, Online Kung Fu, and a lot more!

With the game getiting into a better state. I wanted to take some time to add another variant! ATOMIC CHESS! It's a chess variant where every capture triggers a 3×3 explosion, pawns survive the blast, and blowing up the enemy king wins the game on the spot. It comes with a full hub of its own, a Survival mode, and a mini-tutorial that walks you through the rules before your first match.

On top of that, both Atomic Chess and the existing Kung Fu Chess now support online multiplayer for the first time - play anyone with a 4-digit code, anywhere in the world. Alongside that I rebuilt the Kung Fu Chess hub to match the new Atomic layout, added a proper AI-opponent picker (with named personalities and flags) to both variants, gave the profile page a country-identity system, and replaced the synth chess sound effects with studio-quality audio. The backend got 88 automated tests to keep everything solid.

New to these variants? Here's the short version:

Atomic Chess — Every capture triggers a 3×3 explosion that destroys every surrounding piece except pawns. Kings can't capture (they'd blow themselves up), and blowing up the enemy king wins instantly. It's standard chess dropped into a minefield — a single ill-placed trade can end the game in two moves.

Kung Fu Chess — No turns. Both players move at the same time, pieces travel over the board instead of teleporting, and every piece has a cooldown after moving. Capture the king to win. It plays less like chess and more like a real-time strategy game crammed onto 64 squares. The Extreme variant adds a buff bar: earn points by moving, spend them for powerful double-moves that skip cooldowns.

[NEW] Atomic Chess

A full new variant, playable from the main menu:

• Quick Match vs AI — pick a tier (Easy / Medium / Hard / Master), then pick a specific AI personality. Each shows their country flag, ELO, and your W/L record against them.

• Local PvP — hot-seat, two players on the same device.

• Survival mode — consecutive rounds against escalating AI, with a "Last Stand" rematch chance per run and a best-streak leaderboard.

• Online 1v1 (BETA) — create a 4-digit code, share it, battle online (see below).

• Built-in tutorial — first time you launch Atomic, you get a four-step walkthrough: captures explode, pawns survive splash, kings can't capture, your king is a bomb target.

• Explosion preview — hover over a capture to see the 3×3 blast zone in red before committing. Kings inside the blast light up in yellow so you can spot suicides.

• Pause anywhere with P — pause overlay with Resume / Quit to Menu. Back arrow during an active game also opens the pause overlay.

• Game-over screen shows the full move list including the opponent's killer move, plus a Review Board button to inspect the final position without dismissing the summary.

[NEW] Online multiplayer for both variants (BETA)

• Atomic Chess Online 1v1 — The server validates every move under atomic rules (3×3 blast zone, pawn survival, king explosion, castling-rights cleanup) so both boards stay in sync.

• Kung Fu Chess Online 1v1 — Real-time play over the network. Both players move simultaneously, piece transits synchronize between clients, ~2-second poll latency.

• Both are clearly marked BETA in their menus. I'm soaking for real-world play; report anything weird.

[NEW] AI personality picker for variants

Across Atomic Chess and the newly-redesigned Kung Fu Chess hub, you no longer play a nameless "Computer". Pick a specific named AI — Daisy, Bumble, Jasper, Blitz, Arjun, and more — each with their own country flag, ELO, and running W/L record against you.

[NEW] Profile country & identity

• A gear icon next to your name on the profile page opens a country picker.

• Pick your country and I'll ask, via popup, whether to also equip that country's themed piece set and board — so identity and cosmetics are finally separate.

• Your flag appears alongside your name; your title row now reads "Grandmaster · Netherlands · Since Mar 2026".

[IMPROVED] Kung Fu Chess hub redesign

Kung Fu's hub got the same two-stage layout as the new Atomic hub: mode picker (Quick Match / Survival / Online) → tier pills → AI personality grid, with a cleaner rules card and the existing Standard / Extreme toggle preserved.

[IMPROVED] Audio overhaul

• Six chess sound effects replaced with studio-quality generated audio: piece move, capture, check, checkmate, illegal move, and the atomic explosion. No more synth tinniness.

• The atomic explosion is a real punchy boom with debris tail, not a 200ms oscillator blip.

• Critical SFX volume bug fixed — some players had SFX stuck at 0 from an older save. The settings migration now detects and restores a sane default without overriding your current preferences.

• Settings → SFX Volume slider changes persist correctly to both per-profile and global settings.

[IMPROVED] Opponent piece sets in variants

The Collection "Opponent uses your set" toggle now works in Atomic Chess and Kung Fu Chess (both static board rendering and Kung Fu's transit animations). Toggle off and the AI renders in its personality's themed set while your side keeps yours.

[IMPROVED] 3D piece support in Atomic

Atomic Chess honors the 3D Pieces setting. PNG fallback to SVG if a 3D variant is missing.

[IMPROVED] 4K scaling

The base font cap on redesigned hub screens raised from 8px to 14px — content scales correctly on 4K displays instead of rendering at half-size with excess empty space.

FIXED

• Atomic Chess back button now properly positioned at top-left of the game screen.

• Review Board button text overflow in the game-over screen.

• Atomic game-over overlay closing the game before adding the final opponent move to the history.

• Country flag on profile page now reflects your chosen country (identity), not your currently equipped piece-skin.

• Castling rights bug in server-side atomic move application: a rook destroyed in the explosion at its home square wasn't removing the castling flag.

• FixedPrevious build's [c].asar[/c] corruption producing a [c]SyntaxErrorUnexpected identifier 'results'[/c] crash on launch — resolved via cleanup + fresh rebuild.

• Force-rebuild of asar integrity.

• Further tweaked and improved the AI across the board

• Fixed the bug where the clock stops for AI

• Added multiple new AI's

Outro

Atomic Chess has been sitting on my "one day" list for a long time. Getting it in the game with a proper hub, tutorial, named AIs, and online multiplayer on day one feels really good. Kung Fu Chess finally going online is the cherry on top.

Both online variant modes are marked BETA for a reason — the offline experience alone most likely needs balacing, and Online is even more somplicated. If you find a desync, a weird move rejection, or anything funky during an online match, please post in the community discussion or drop a bug report. I'll be watching closely during the first week and patching fast.

Meanwhile: pick your country, blow somebody up in Atomic, or race them across the board in Kung Fu. Have fun. Thanks for playing.