StarkChess

Your Move is Your Transaction On-chain chess powered by Starknet Cartridge and Dojo where every move is important, every strategy earns rewards, and the game truly belongs to the players.

Comment

Inspiration

In today’s gaming world, players spend hours building skill and strategy, but their achievements stay trapped inside centralized systems. There’s no real ownership, no transparency, and no way to prove your progress or earn from your gameplay.

StarkChess changes that by bringing chess completely on-chain, combining the world’s oldest strategy game with the transparency and fairness of blockchain. We were inspired by the idea that every strategy in chess could be a verifiable transaction and every player, a stakeholder in their own skill.

What it does

StarkChess is a fully on-chain chess platform built on Starknet, powered by Dojo Engine, and integrated with Cartridge for a smooth gaming experience.

On-Chain Chess Matches: Each move is recorded immutably on Starknet, ensuring transparency and fair play. Player vs Player / Player vs computer: Compete against humans or challenge an computer opponent. Prediction Staking: Spectators can stake tokens on who they think will win, and winners share the rewards, creating a new layer of engagement. Verified Game History: Every move and match result can be traced and verified on-chain.

How we built it

We built StarkChess using Cairo and Dojo Engine to handle all game logic on-chain. The Cartridge integration provides a frictionless user experience, players can join games instantly without managing complex wallet setups.

Our architecture leverages:

Starknet for scalability and security Dojo Engine for game logic and world state Cartridge for smooth wallet sessions Cairo for smart contract logic React + TypeScript + Vite + TailwindCSS for frontend interface

Challenges we ran into

Designing a staking/prediction flow that feels instant while remaining trustless and indexable.

  • Implementing efficient on-chain move validation without excessive gas costs
  • Managing real-time updates between on-chain game states and frontend display
  • Integrating Cartridge for a seamless onboarding experience
  • Ensuring fair prediction staking and automatic reward distribution

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Deployed a fully working chess prototype on Starknet testnet
  • Achieved end-to-end on-chain gameplay no central servers
  • Designed a unique spectator staking model that merges gaming and DeFi
  • Created a clean and responsive UI with fast gameplay experience

What we learned

Cairo and Dojo promote strong state modeling designing models first simplifies systems later. How Cartridge simplifies wallet interactions and improves adoption Deterministic UI with Zustand + “request/result” hooks keeps complex on-chain flows manageable.

What's next for StarkChess

Deploy on Starknet mainnet and open community testing Full ruleset coverage and proofs-of-valid-move to reduce validation costs. Robust staking settlement with ERC-20 support, slashing/anti-griefing, and spectator reward claims. Tournaments, seasons, and protocol governance; richer AI levels and analytics.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates