Traditional Korean Janggi in your browser — an AI opponent with four difficulty tiers, interactive tutorials, multilingual support, and handcrafted Korean-inspired board themes.
The Sansuhwa (ink-wash landscape) board at the opening setup. Visual assets are All Rights Reserved — see ASSETS_LICENSE.md.
- Play against the AI — powered by Fairy-Stockfish (WebAssembly), across four difficulty tiers:
- 🌱 Beginner — for someone learning Janggi for the first time
- 🍃 Familiar Friend — a relaxed opponent for a casual game
- 🎋 Seasoned Player — rarely leaves an opening
- 🏮 Master — allows not a single opening
- Interactive piece tutorials — learn how each piece moves, step by step
- Rules reference for beginners — check, checkmate, and how to win, explained in plain language
- Traditional Korean board themes
- Sansuhwa (Ink Wash Landscape)
- Wood
- Sipjangsaeng
- Hanji
- Multiple languages
- English
- 한국어 (Korean)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- 简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
- 繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
- Deutsch (German)
- Français (French)
- Mobile and desktop support — responsive layout for both
Janggi is a traditional Korean strategy board game, often described as Korean Chess. While it shares some roots with Xiangqi and similarities with Chess, it has unique rules and tactics of its own — including the diagonal palace lines, the cannon (包) that leaps over a single piece, and the option to pass a turn.
The two sides, Cho (楚) and Han (漢), take their names from the historic rivalry between the kingdoms of Chu and Han in ancient China.
The four tiers are built on the Fairy-Stockfish engine, adjusted along a few axes so the climb from beginner to master feels natural:
- Search depth and skill level rise with each tier — the higher tiers look further ahead and play more precisely.
- The lower tiers mix in occasional deliberate slips, so a beginner can win with focus, while the Master concedes nothing.
At every tier the engine still recognises immediate wins and threats; the easier opponents simply don't always choose the sharpest line. Beginner is tuned so that a newcomer who plays carefully can win some of the time — not a pushover, not a wall. Master plays at full strength and is meant as a genuine challenge.
- Vanilla JavaScript, HTML, and CSS (no framework)
- AI opponent via Fairy-Stockfish (GPLv3) compiled to WebAssembly
- Requires cross-origin isolation (
COOP/COEP) for the WASM engine - Deployed on Cloudflare Pages
The code and the visual assets are licensed separately.
- Code (
index.html,style.css,script.js,engine.js, etc.) — GNU General Public License v3.0. This follows from integrating Fairy-Stockfish, which is GPLv3. - Visual assets (board backgrounds, piece artwork, and other theme/UI images under
assets/) — All Rights Reserved by Hanrim. They are not covered by the GPLv3 and may not be redistributed or reused when forking the code. See ASSETS_LICENSE.md for details.
If you fork or redistribute this project, the GPLv3 applies to the code only; the visual assets must not be redistributed with it.