Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

BCMGames

Created by Bernard C. März, BCMGames is a program for Windows that can play Shogi, Xiangqi, Chess, Chess960, Makruk, GoroGoro Shogi, Minishogi, Judkin Shogi, and Chu Shogi. It was originally called BCMShogi, since it began as a Shogi program. For now, this page will just focus on its use for Shogi. This program stands out above other Shogi programs for a few reasons:

  1. It comes with the Spear Shogi engine and can be used with other USI compatible Shogi engines.
  2. Its graphics are fully customizable, allowing users to design and use their own graphics with the program, and it comes with several sets of Shogi graphics, both Japanese and western.
  3. It will show you where your pieces can move and even where your opponent's pieces can move.

Download

You may download a modified distribution of BCMGames directly from our own website. Development of BCMGames has stopped, and the final version, upon which this distribution is based, is dated March 25, 2014. This distribution leaves the program unchanged, but it adds some new Shogi sets designed by Fergus Duniho. This involves adding a new directory and adding new menu items by modifying the settings.ini file.

Here are other UCI Shogi engines you can use with BCMGames:

This package will not autoinstall. Just unzip the archive to where you want BCMGames to go.

Screenshots

Here is a screenshot of the program, using the Bona Normal set. This image has been resized by 50%.

Here is a screenshot of an international piece set created by a user known on YouTube as Hidetchi, which now comes with the program. This image has been resized to 75%.

Here is a fullsize screenshot of it using Fergus Duniho's Symbolic set:

Here is a fullsize screenshot of it using Fergus Duniho's Chess Motif set:

Links

WWW Page Created: Sat, 13 Nov 2010.