ChineseChess

ChineseChess is Xiangqi the way it should look on a Mac: two sculpted armies facing each other across a marble board, every piece carrying the character that names it. If you have only ever met Chinese chess as a grid of flat circles in a browser tab, this is the version that finally feels like a board you would keep on a table.

It runs entirely on your Mac. No account, no sign-up to play, no server holding your game. Every piece model, every typeface and the whole rules engine ship inside the app, so it works exactly the same with the Wi-Fi off.

Highlights

1. An opponent that is always free. Play the built-in engine across five levels, from a Novice who takes what it is given and little else, up to a Grandmaster that searches every line it has time for and will not hand you a piece. The lower levels are not just slower - they are genuinely blind to things a beginner is blind to, so they make mistakes you can punish instead of playing perfectly one move at a time. Take Red or Black, and it thinks in the background without the board ever stuttering.
2. Two boards, one game. Play on the sculpted 3D board when you want the spectacle, or flip to a clean flat 2D board when you just want to see the position. Switch in the middle of a match and nothing is lost - same position, same history, same captured pieces.
3. A traditional set, and help reading it. Each piece carries its Han character and nothing else, exactly as it should. Still learning them? Hover any piece for its English name, and the captured list and move record name every piece in English as it comes off the board.
4. It knows the rules, so you do not have to. Pick up any piece and every legal square lights up - the cannon that needs a screen to capture, the elephant that may never cross the river, the horse whose leg is blocked, the two generals that may never face each other down an open file. Illegal moves simply are not offered.
5. Captures you can watch. Every piece takes in its own way. The cannon recoils and fires a shot across the board, the chariot charges, the horse leaps, and when a general delivers the killing blow the camera pushes in for it.
6. Take back as far as you like. Change your mind about a move from ten moves ago and the whole board unwinds, captured pieces included. Good for studying a line, and good for playing someone who is still learning.
7. A record of the match. Every move is listed as you play, each side's captured pieces are tallied beside it, and check and checkmate are called the moment they happen.
8. A proper Mac app. Native menu bar with keyboard shortcuts for a new game, take-back and switching boards, a real window you can resize, and the Dock behaviour you expect.

How it works

Open the app and the board is already set, with Red to move and the engine waiting on the other side. Prefer a person? Switch the opponent to Two players in Settings and hand the screen back and forth. Click one of your pieces and its legal squares appear; click a square to move there, or click an enemy piece you can take. Drag anywhere on the 3D board to look around it, and use Flip to sit behind the other side.

The 3D and 2D buttons in the top right swap the board at any time. Everything else - the opponent, which side you play, the difficulty, sound and board coordinates - lives behind the settings button next to them.

Perfect for

1. Anyone who plays Xiangqi and wants a board on their Mac that is nice to look at
2. Chess players curious about the Chinese game, who need the rules enforced while they learn
3. Anyone who wants a game right now, with an opponent that plays at whatever strength you pick
4. Two people sharing one screen for a game across the desk
5. Anyone learning the characters, with the English names a hover away while they do
6. Studying openings and endgames, where take-back and the move record do the work

Built on the open-source project chess-cn by Tsonglew, MIT licensed. Full acknowledgements are in the app menu.