Boardgammon — Real-Time Turn-Based Board Games in the Browser (Canvas 2D, WebSockets, gnubg/wildbg AI, Free)

[payamprivate]

Hey everyone,

Over the past several months, we've been building and refining Boardgammon, an open, instant-play web platform for classical turn-based abstract games (starting with Backgammon and expanding into Checkers and Chess), rendered entirely with immediate-mode Canvas 2D and running authoritative real-time synchronization over WebSockets and WebRTC.

You can test the playable browser edition directly without signing up or downloading anything:
👉 https://boardgammon.com/play (instant guest matchmaking vs live players or multi-tier AI)

Technical Stack & Architecture Highlights:

• Rendering Pipeline: Instead of heavy DOM nodes or heavy SVG trees, we run a single-canvas immediate-mode render loop with dirty-rectangle tracking and cancelAnimationFrame idle gating. When pieces aren't animating or being dragged, the loop settles to 0% idle CPU usage.
• Server-Authoritative Synchronization: Built on a Go backend with Postgres and Redis pub/sub. Every dice roll, checker movement, and cube action is strictly validated by the server before state commits.
• Provably Fair Cryptographic Dice: One of our biggest technical challenges was solving the classic player belief that "online dice are rigged". We implemented an open SHA-256 commit-reveal protocol with HMAC entropy blending where players can audit every roll after the match at boardgammon.com/fair-dice/.
• Multi-Tiered AI Engines: Offline and online house play are powered by tiered engines: Easy/Medium heuristics, a custom on-device Neural Network evaluator (wildbg architecture), and server-side GNU Backgammon (gnubg 1.06) rollouts for post-game error and equity analysis (PR, luck rating, and cube decisions).
• Low-Latency Voice Chat: Integrated WebRTC peer-to-peer audio channels so friends can talk seamlessly during matches without external voice apps.

What we’d love feedback on:

1. Canvas drag-and-drop ergonomics: How does piece picking and placement feel on touch screens vs mouse pointer?
2. Audio feedback & latency: Sound effects and dice rolling physics across different mobile browsers (Safari vs Chrome vs Firefox).
3. Visual theme legibility: We offer several handcrafted visual themes (walnut, obsidian, imperial jade, etc.) — feedback on checker contrast and point clarity is very welcome!

Feel free to jump in, play a quick casual match against the AI or queue up for guest play at boardgammon.com/play, and let us know what you think!