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Apr 28 20:38 UTC

Show HN: Tiao, A two-player turn-based board game (playtiao.com)

59 points|by trebeljahr||28 comments|Read full story on playtiao.com
Hi HN,

I built this digital version of Tiao, a two-player turn based strategy board game. Think Checkers meets Go. It's free, runs in the browser, has multiplayer, AI, over the board mode and a lot of other neat things. The source is on GitHub (AGPL).

The game was originally designed by my friend Andreas Edmeier. He created the rules and has been playtesting and refining the game design for years. I built the website for it. The core in about 2 weeks using TypeScript, Next.js, Express, Websockets, and MongoDB. Fully dockerized, deployed on a Hetzner VPS with Coolify. Authentication with better-auth. Real-time gameplay, ELO matchmaking, OpenPanel analytics, and a fully functional achievements system.

Play it: https://playtiao.com Source: https://github.com/trebeljahr/tiao

Happy to answer questions about the tech, the game design, or anything else.

My hope is that more people will play this game because I think it is genuinely fun and would be cool to one day see people play this on a Go board or on their phones/computers.

Have a good one.

Comments (28)

28 shown
  1. 1. rytill||context
    Hey! I played against a bot and it was pretty fun.

    Small suggestion: too many queues can make it very difficult to build up a network of players at first. I'd suggest, for now, lowering the amount of available time control queues so that two players who happen to be on at the same time are more likely to actually find a game.

  2. 2. trebeljahr||context
    That is such a good idea.

    I just looked at lichess and copied their time controls queue screen/options. But you're so right! I'm thinking which time control would be best for the beginning... 10 mins maybe?

  3. 3. rytill||context
    That’s the most common time control on chess.com according to this article: https://www.chess.com/article/view/time-controls-and-game-re...

    It sounds like a good idea to me!

  4. 4. scythmic_waves||context
    It's fun! I play some chess but I am not a natural at this game. I think I need an AI easier than easy haha
  5. 5. mrblampo||context
    Me too!
  6. 6. ymaws||context
    I can't beat easy, incredibly addictive game :)
  7. 7. trebeljahr||context
    Yay :)
  8. 8. homeonthemtn||context
    I appreciate the tutorial. I thought it was well done. I'd love to see something like that in some board games I've played.
  9. 9. WillMorr||context
    Clever! I really appreciate how well done the tutorial is, it's just about the easiest game intro I've ever experienced.
  10. 10. trebeljahr||context
    Thanks :)
  11. 11. trebeljahr||context
    I put a lot of work trying to make it as smooth as possible. But there's still some rough edges I think, have to play test it more with friends, just the amount of different assumptions that people bring to a tutorial and trying to handle all of them without being overwhelming is such a tricky balance to get right haha
  12. 12. Rendello||context
    Cool! I've tried (and I guess failed) to build two of my favourite combinatorial games: the ancient "Konane" and the modern "Shōbu". At least the latter's project taught me property-based testing in Erlang.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnane

    https://boardgamegeek.com/video/482389/shobu/how-to-play-sho...

  13. 13. trebeljahr||context
    I've never heard of either before but they look like a lot of fun :)

    I like the video introduction on the board game geek site, maybe I should film something like this with my friend for Tiao and also put a page up there? :D

  14. 14. Rendello||context
    Definitely!
  15. 15. simplify||context
    Cool concept! I play Go, and it's extremely unnerving that all the good shapes you play in Go are essentially the worst shapes you can play in Tiao :D
  16. 16. trebeljahr||context
    Haha yeah :D
  17. 17. mock-possum||context
    Oh wow I am terrible at this

    Nice implementation though, plays pretty well in n my little bitty mobile screen

  18. 18. gammalost||context
    Now I am interested in playing a board game that is not turn-based
  19. 19. oniony||context
    Yeah, I play a lot of board games and was confused by the explicit statement that it was turned based, as most board games are turned based and realtime boardgames are pretty exceptional.

    Anyhow, off the top of my head:

    * Galaxy Trucker

    * Pendulum

    * Captain Sonar

    * Sidereal Confluence

    * Kitchen Rush

  20. 20. trebeljahr||context
    Oh true haha :)

    I guess I just added this "turn based" phrase because it's online and for me felt somehow more descriptive of what it is, but you're absolutely right.

    And now I also wonder what would a non-turn based board game look like?

    I'll have to try one of those you recommended and find out :)

  21. 21. bdsa||context
    Magic Maze

    Bananagrams

    probably others from my shelves

  22. 22. tajd||context
    I loved this.

    A shameless plug for myself and my own investigations into the world of old strategy games - https://tom-dickson.com/blog/trias-game-investigation/ - was where I did an investigation into the game called Trias/ternii lapilli which is like an old version of tic tac toe.

  23. 23. zem||context
    great game and very nice implementation!
  24. 24. smlavine||context
    Very fun game! Has this been released before? This is the only place I can find that mentions it.
  25. 25. smlavine||context
    Finally won a game against the Easy bot on the 9x9 board after around 10 tries.

    Seems like if you want to force a win, you have to think about how to put your opponent in "Zugzwang" (to borrow a Chess term).

  26. 26. yashwi_||context
    Nice implementation. Out of curiosity, how are you handling multiplayer state sync?

    For a board game like this I’d imagine sending move events and letting clients recompute the board locally rather than syncing the whole board every turn. Curious what approach you took.

  27. 27. mylifeandtimes||context
    would be great to have a 'learner' mode where I could take back a move after the computer jumps 5 of my pieces :)

    I'd also appreciate if illegal moves highlighed in a slightly less intense color, so we could see they were illegal. At the moment, when I'm hovering over the board, I don't know if a move is legal or not until I click-- and then it is too late!

  28. 28. gurjeet||context
    > ... 'learner' mode where I could take back a move after the computer ...

    The 'Undo move' button does exactly that.