Meet the smallest Chess game for computers.

Only 487 bytes in filesize, this new computer chess game breaks a 33-year record.

Meet BootChess, a Chess game for computers developed by French Coder, Olivier Poudade. Made to run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux computers, BootChess breaks the 33-year record as being the smallest sized Chess for computers software held previously by 1K ZX Chess which is 672 bytes in size.

Olivier Poudade, the developer, states that part of his goals is to get people involved in the sizecoding scene and had this statement in regards to his Programming Language of choice:
“[It] demonstrates why assembly language is still the language of choice to excel [at] in programming, [and it] reminds others that optimising in computer programming is not only about speed, but also about size.”

While some critics have stated that BootChess is not a full Chess Game due to its flaw, the limitation of the “Castling” move, a defensive tactic that shifts the positions of the Rook and the King simulataneously, Olivier states that even the 1K ZX Chess game had the same limitation, what is different in his game though is that in contrast to the 1K ZX Chess, BootChess supports the Promotion move in which the pawn will be promoted to a queen once it reaches the opposite side of the board.

You can check out the game’s code and test the game for yourself using Assembly Language in Olivier Poudade’s website or by clicking this link.