About BoardGame Battles

What it is

BoardGame Battles is a free platform for board and card games: checkers, chess, dominoes, poker, truco, UNO, buraco, billiards, blackjack and ludo. It runs in the browser and as an Android app, with real-time multiplayer and AI opponents at three levels.

The project came out of a simple frustration: the table games we play all our lives — the weekend dominoes, the card game at the bar — almost always show up online buried under full-screen ads, mandatory accounts, and rules bent out of shape to fit a 30-second tutorial. We wanted the opposite: the real rules, real people on the other side, and the ability to simply open it and play.

How the games are implemented

Every game follows the official rules, and that is not a marketing detail. Chess has castling on both sides, en passant, promotion, stalemate, insufficient material and threefold repetition. Checkers has mandatory and chained captures. Dominoes has the boneyard and blocked games with pip counting. Truco has the vira, variable manilhas and the club zap.

Where simplifications relative to the physical table remain, they are deliberate and documented choices, not oversights — and we keep closing those gaps.

How the project is funded

BoardGame Battles is funded by advertising and by an optional premium plan that removes the ads. No game, mode or feature is locked behind payment: someone who never spends a cent gets exactly the same 10 games and the same modes as anyone else.

In-game coins buy cosmetics only — boards, frames and pieces. They confer no competitive advantage of any kind.

Poker and blackjack: no real money

Poker and blackjack at BoardGame Battles are played exclusively with virtual chips and coins. There is no deposit, no withdrawal, no cash prize, and no conversion to real-world value at any point. We are not, and do not intend to become, a gambling platform.

Languages and reach

The platform is available in 8 languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Chinese and Japanese. The games, though, are the same everywhere — truco and buraco, both born in Brazil, are there for anyone who wants to learn, and the guides explain the rules from scratch.