Hello, 5 months later it's finally time for another update. This time the highlights are improved computer speed and nice charts.

Improved computer speed

The computer speed was improved by 2x or more. Now it's finally possible to increase the computer depth on Android devices. Offline games can use 4 instead of 3 and local computer analysis uses 3 now instead of 2.

Also you can now choose the strength when starting an offline game.

Charts and stats

If you scroll down in the "Top players" screen, you will see new statistics that may be interesting. The charts show games per day, players per day and the global average rating.

The server now slowly pushes the average rating to 1300. Let's see what happens ^^ (edit: this was removed again)

BlankBot

A new algorithm was created by ezragt called "BlankBot". It is similar to the ClassicBot but has a different ranking for the king. It should play more aggressive by trying to run to the baseline with its king.

Very cool server stats

• 235 registered users (including 5 bots)
  
• 7.5 K played games
  
• 31 K opening database entries
  

Heyaaaa, a new Flang Version is here.

What are the new features we can enjoy?

Global Chat

You can now chat in-game with other players. You can also send games either through the new import feature or by sharing games from the games screen into the global chat. Online games are referenced by their game ID and offline games contain only the game data.

   

Flang Notations v2

A new version of notations has arrived. The new ones are shorter and easier to transmit. More info here: https://codeberg.org/jannis/Flang/wiki/Notation

Import games

From the Analysis screen, you can click on the three-dot menu in the top right corner and click on "Import game". Then you can paste Flang games or positions into the textfield. Supported formats are FBNv2, FMN (v1 & v2)

Faster offline bot and hint calculation (about x5-10 speed)

The faster bot is already used on the server for about two weeks. This is how I reduced the time to get to the same result:

• Use Alpha/Beta-Pruning on the top level
  
• Reuse the evaluation matrix -> it doesn't need to be rebuilt every time
  
• Use primitive Java-Types and Enums instead of created lots of new java objects
  
• Instead of building a list of all moves, we can process them straight away through Kotlin inlining
  

• 165 registered users (including 4 Bots)
  
• 6 unique daily users
  
• 5.47K played games
  
• 21K opening database entries
  

After some time, a new update is here! Version 1.5 contains the following changes:

Offline Computer Analysis: In the analysis screen, you can click on the computer analysis button and it will show you a graph of the game and tries to show you mistakes. As the bot, especially in offline mode isn't that good the quality of the analysis can't be that good.

   

Improved Offline Bot: The offline bot should play a bit stronger now

Show opening position names: Some of the most used openings now have names that are displayed below the board if available.

Other changes:

• Board animation improvements
  
• Support hyperlinks in server announcements
  
• Added Russian translation
  

• 128 registered users (including 4 Bots)
  
• 4258 played online games
  
• 17K opening database entries
  

Hi, version 1.4 is here. It includes the following changes:

• Opening database
  
• Make profile page invisible for anonymous users
  
• Detect invalid user sessions
  

• 90 registered users (including 4 Bots)
  
• 2393 recorded games
  
• 12K opening database entries
  

I just released 1.3 which contains the following changes:

• custom game configurations (casual/rated, time selection)
  
• show info about a player
  
• show a rating history chart on the profile page
  
• show number of spectators in a game
  
• show user titles (like GM or BOT)
  
• don't log sensitive data
  

• 1379 recorded games
  
• 54 registered users (+4 Bots)
  

I just released Version 1.2.

This update contains the following changes:

1. Server announcements: I can now create cards that appear in the main screen such as announcements for events.
   
2. Show top rated/online players: A new tab that shows the top rated players and also 10 players that are online at the moment. You can click on the names to see their profile.
   

A tutorial just needed to be in the app for the release because new players don't know the rules. It will explain how the pieces move, freeze mechanic and how to win.

Version 1.0 was tagged. The app is in review on Google Play and I created a inclusion request for F-Droid. Hope these will get through soon.

Since the last post I did the following things:

• Consents when registering in the app (privacy policy)
  
• Swap button to swap the side you are looking from
  
• Tablet optimization
  

• fix some small things
  
• first app release
  
• add to Google Play and F-Droid
  
• wait
  

Today we got the analysis board and a new bottom bar.

   

In the analysis board you can undo moves and test out future move combinations. You can enter it from any other game or the side menu. If the analyzed game is complete or an offline game, it is possible to turn on hints.

Hints are shown using multiple arrows. If more than one move is displayed, the transparency stands for how good the move actually is. Different colors mean different bots. At the moment, these are the color combinations but they can change anytime:

• Green: online Classic Bot Level 4
  
• Blue: online Neo Bot Level 5
  
• Cyan: offline Classic Bot Level 3
  

Flang TV is inspired by Lichess TV just like many other features in Flang Currently TV shows the game with the best rated players. When the game is over, a new game to display is searched.

   

Player ratings and rating differences are saved to every game and now displayed in the client. These values could also be used to show a rating graph on the users profile but it's not finalised how the statistics will work.

   

Still open:

• Follow other players
  
• Search for other players
  
• Analysis board
  
• Challenge other players
  
• Import games
  
• Play over the board (flip black pieces)
  
• Client version check (show a notice to old clients that the version might not be working correctly anymore)
  
• Player profiles (online state, registration date, report users, chart showing the elo ranking)