Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Web services, Time-Wasters
Play online chess with Shredder
by Ian Smith Nov 19th 2007
No, we aren't talking about Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We're talking about the Shredder chess engine. This AI likes to play chess, and it also likes to win.Let's face it, most game AI work these days is not about making harder opponents, it is about making flawed opponents that play like humans. "Indistinguishable", if you will. But, as Shredder makes clear, it is easy for the computers to beat humans. That is why the computers should fight each other.
The Shredder engine is actually built to play against other computer chess engines. It does its job well and has won 12 World Computer Chess Champion titles since 1996. For this online version the AI has been dumbed down to make for a more interesting human vs computer challenge. It is still dirt hard though and you'll have to have some serious chess skills to get more than 10 moves into most games without being checkmated.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
