Balance of Power Chess (bop)

"King is the father, Queen the mother, the two is the child — and the child grows into a King. So the cycle of power begins again."

Balance of Power Chess (BoP Chess, or just bop) is a two-player trick-taking card game that maps a 52-card deck onto chess pieces and a "balance of power" cycle in which even the smallest card can topple the King under the right conditions. This package is the free, open-source command-line implementation of the game by its designer, SilverSummitCo LLC, intended as a strategy sandbox for testing lines of play before they reach the kitchen-table or commercial versions.

Install

From PyPI (when published)

pipx install bop-chess          # recommended
# or
pip install --user bop-chess

After installation, the bop console script is on your $PATH:

bop

The PyPI package name is bop-chess (bop was taken). The bop console script command is unchanged — you still just type bop to play. See the publish runbook for the full release steps.

From source (development install)

git clone https://github.com/silversummitco/balance-of-power-chess.git
cd balance-of-power-chess/BalanceOfPowerGame
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e .[dev]
.venv/bin/bop                      # or:  .venv/bin/python -m bop

Optional: desktop launcher (Linux)

bop --install-desktop

Writes a .desktop file under ~/.local/share/applications/ so the game shows up in your applications menu. macOS / Windows print a graceful message instead — launch the game from a terminal on those platforms.

Usage

bop                         # Play a Game to 64 cumulative Procession points.
bop --exhibition            # Play a single Match.
bop --difficulty easy|hard  # Set the AI strength up front.
bop --target-score N        # Custom target score (default 64).
bop --seed N                # Reproducible shuffle - same N gives the same deal.
bop --name LEE              # Skip the name/color/icon setup wizard.
bop --no-intro              # Skip the opening lore crawl.

bop --rules                 # Print the full canonical rules and exit.
bop --credits               # Author, license, tip-jar.
bop --leaderboard           # Show local stats (per-name win/loss tracking).
bop --install-desktop       # Add an applications-menu launcher (Linux).
bop --version
bop --help                  # Full command sitemap.

While playing, at any "Play number" prompt you can also type:

Environment variables

The game in 30 seconds

• Chess flavor. King = K, Queen = Q, Bishop = A, Knight = J, Rook = 10. Cards 3-9 are pawns. The 2 is the special "en-passant pawn."
• Two phases per match.
  • Battle Round — classic trick-taking. Each trick has a Board Card drawn from the deck which sets the round suit. Must follow suit if able. Higher suit beats lower suit; same suit, higher rank wins. Special plays: en passant (a declared 2 of same-or-higher suit beats a King) and castle (10 + K of the same suit played together, supreme within its suit).
  • Procession Round — the final battle. Captured face/10/2 cards from the Battle become each player's "power-card" hand. Players play their cards in their own ascending order (suit ladder ♣ → ♦ → ♠ → ♥). A standing card on the Battle Board stays until outranked. Any Queen entering the board (natural or a kept 2 played as a pseudo-Queen) wins the slot — the Stop Run rule.
• Cycle of power. King beats Queen; Queen beats pseudo-Queen / 2; declared 2 beats King. Every card has a vulnerability.
• Goal. First player to 64 cumulative Procession points wins. (One point per square on a chess board.)

The complete rules are bundled with the install — run bop --rules or read docs/rules.md.

Tip the designer

If you're enjoying the game and want to throw a coin to the author, the addresses are also listed under bop --credits:

• BTC: bc1qc7fp9cjww0ju03v9lyekkce44wfr3zyt6rud6x
• DOGE: DJDqBvbDjZfZTF3k4d2p7PfZbsJGfPTHKV

Contact: silversummitco@proton.me

Project layout

bop/                  ← installable Python package
├── card.py
├── deck.py
├── trick.py
├── battle_round.py
├── transition.py
├── procession.py
├── match.py
├── game.py
├── ai.py
├── stats.py          ← leaderboard persistence
├── install.py        ← desktop-launcher installer
├── cli.py            ← `bop` entry point
└── ui/
    ├── colors.py     ← ANSI palette + helpers
    ├── intro.py      ← Block-letter CHESS splash + rules
    ├── render.py     ← All card / table / frame rendering
    ├── prompts.py    ← HumanPlayer + in-game commands
    └── setup.py      ← Name / color / icon / difficulty wizard
tests/                ← ~220 pytest cases
docs/
├── rules.md          ← Canonical ruleset
└── HOWTO_PUBLISH.md  ← Release runbook
LICENSE               ← CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 © SilverSummitCo LLC
CHANGELOG.md
pyproject.toml

Status

Alpha. The game is feature-complete from a play standpoint; the next publication step is on PyPI. See CHANGELOG.md for the unreleased feature list and docs/HOWTO_PUBLISH.md for the publish runbook.

License

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 — Copyright © 2024-2026 SilverSummitCo LLC. All rights reserved.

Free to share (unmodified) for personal and educational use. No modifications. No commercial use. Both require the prior written permission of SilverSummitCo LLC.

Contact: silversummitco@proton.me · See LICENSE for full terms.