🧩 Chess (C++ Project)

A two-player, console-based chess game written in C++. I first built it for my C++ course to practice:

• Class design and inheritance (AbsPiece → Pawn, Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King)
• Polymorphism with pure virtual functions
• Dynamic memory management
• Encapsulation and a modular file structure
• Game logic
• STL containers
• Algorithms and custom data structures

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📄 Features

• Full 8×8 board drawn in the terminal with file (a–h) and rank (1–8) labels
• A separate class for each piece, each with its own move rules
• Move validation, including blocked paths and captures
• Check detection that blocks any move leaving your own king in check
• Turn tracking and game records saved to GameRecord.txt and GameRecord.bin
• Captured pieces and a material score for each player
• After the game ends:
  • Two-column move history (Player 1 / Player 2)
  • Captured pieces sorted by value
  • A graph of available moves for each piece
  • An option to rewind and replay the game move by move

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🛠️ Build & Run

You need a C++ compiler that supports C++11 or newer (for example g++, clang++, or MSVC).

git clone https://github.com/ShawnGarello/Chess.git
cd Chess
g++ -std=c++17 *.cpp -o chess
./chess

On Windows, run chess.exe instead of ./chess.

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🎮 How To Play

• Player 1 moves first, then players take turns.

• Enter the square of the piece you want to move, then where it goes, separated by a space:

  e2 e4
  

• Squares use letters a–h and numbers 1–8. Invalid input or illegal moves are rejected and you're asked again.

• If your king is in check, the game warns you and only accepts moves that get you out of check.

• Type QIT GME to end the game. You'll then see the move history and stats, and you can choose to rewind and review the game (y / n).

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🧠 Data Structures & Algorithms

Concept	Where it's used
Stacks	Rewinding the game move by move
Queues and lists	Separate move histories for each player
Maps and sets	Tracking captured pieces and score
Arrays of pairs + recursive quicksort	Sorting captured pieces by value
AVL tree (AVL.h, Node.h)	Storing turns in a balanced tree
Hash function + unordered_map	Looking up the turn a specific move happened on (DJB2 hash)
Graph (adjacency list)	Showing the available moves for each piece after the game
Recursion	Printing the game history
Templates and operator overloading	Displaying players and game records
Text and binary file I/O	Saving the game record

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📁 Project Structure

main.cpp               entry point: sets up the board and starts the game
Board.h / .cpp         8×8 board, moving pieces, attack and check detection
AbsPiece.h / .cpp      abstract base class for all pieces
Pawn, Rook, Knight,
Bishop, Queen, King    derived piece classes with their own move rules
Empty.h / .cpp         placeholder for empty squares
GameRec.h / .cpp       game loop, input, history, scoring, rewind, and file output
AVL.h, Node.h          AVL tree used to store turns

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💡 Notes

This project focuses on learning OOP principles and data structures, not on implementing every chess rule. Castling, en passant, pawn promotion, and automatic checkmate detection are not included, so the game ends when a player types QIT GME.