Rival Chess
8.4K plays 1995 #Puzzle
Rival, (Rival Chess, NewRival) is a chess engine by Chris Moreton and Russell Newman, written in C++, starting in 1992 as MS-DOS program with an own GUI, before being rewritten for Windows as WinBoard compatible engine (NewRival) a couple of years later. The UCI protocol was implemented in 2006 as Rival UCI 1.18 for Windows, while the current Rival engine was ported to Java as used in the Android application. DOS and Windows versions are available as source code. Further, Rival is able to play various chess variants like Kinglet, Losing Chess, and Shatranj.
The DOS version of the program used giant graphical icons to control, which were used to set graphics, game parameters, takeback moves and other activities. However, the graphics themselves already seemed outdated and unclear in the mid-nineties. Also the game strength of the program was not high and even on the most powerful machines it did not exceed 2100 ELO points. The Windows version of Rival has participated several times in computer tournaments in its weight category, but without significant success. At that time, his competitors were significantly stronger both in strategy and tactics. Rival's advantage was only in the ability to play more different games, not just regular chess.
On the other hand, Rival was only a shareware project and its last DOS version 1.5f was completely released for free distribution. Because of this, it spread quickly on many computers before Windows. So if you want to measure your chess skills with this old software, please go for it. Good luck.
Text: RetroGames.cz, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Controls
This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.
Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.
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Controls
This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.
Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.
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