Hey Product Hunt! 👋 I built chess4box because I wanted to play chess with three friends at once instead of taking turns in 1v1 games. Four-player chess exists, but most versions I found made everyone sign up, install an app or wait in a lobby before the first move. What it does: ♟️ Four players on a 14×14 cross-shaped board: Red, Blue, Green and Yellow 🔗 You create a game and send one link. The first four people who open it play. 👀 Anyone else who opens the link watches the game live 💸 It's free and there's no sign-up How it evolved: I started with the rules engine, which was the hard part because moves on a cross-shaped board don't behave like normal chess. Then I kept cutting friction. Every step between "hey, want to play?" and the first move was a place where people dropped off, so accounts, lobbies and invite codes all went. That left a single link. Watching live happened almost by accident: once a game is just a link, letting extra people in to watch was nearly free, and it turned out to be half the fun. Recently I've been working on mobile, since that's where most people open a shared link. I'd love your feedback, especially on: • How the first game feels on your phone • Which rule variants you'd want next Grab three friends, send them a link and let me know who wins 😄

chess4box

Four-player chess in your browser. One link, no signup.

Four-player chess in your browser. One link, no signup.

chessbox

Previous chess4box Launches

Previous chess4box Launches