News

January 11, 2021 - Animated Emojis

Along with creating a new 'Joy' theme, we have designed two sets of animated emojis for players to send each other during matches. Based on the feedback we receive for the king and queen emojis, we will consider designing new characters and emojis in the future.

In recent months, we have especially worked to improve the UI/UX. Please let us know how you like the tweaks and have a great new year.

September 29, 2020 - Rummy and 8-Player Ludo

We have launched our 9th card game, Rummy, that can be played with friends or our bot, -AI-Sochi. It is a popular game played around the world and is a good candidate for our upcoming mobile app too.

And, finally, we have created 6-player and 8-player ludo boards so that no friend gets left out of a match! Let us know what you think of the new boards and what game/feature you would like us to work on next - admin@funnode.com

August 28, 2020 - Elimination and XP

Like most games and gaming apps, we now have experience points (XP) for all of our games. Level-up for each game as you play against other players and bots. We will also be improving the players' profile pages to better display their xp/levels, elo ratings, and ladder ranks.

And by the way, we have also added a new card game, from the whist family, Elimination. It's fun and easy to learn - there is a bot, -AI-Knocker, to help you get started too.

July 26, 2020 - Wild Jacks

We are introducing a new board and card game - Wild Jacks. It's gained a lot of popularity recently and it's the first team-based game on FunNode. The backend work done for Wild Jacks will allow us to easily create more team-based games in the future.

We are soon launching our first mobile app for Android and iOS. The first game on the mobile app will be Kachuful. If you enjoy playing Kachuful and are interested in helping us test the mobile app, please let us know - admin@funnode.com

June 14, 2020 - New Themes

We hope you and your loved ones are and remain healthy and safe through these tough times.

We've spent a few weeks improving the interface and themes for all of our games. While we continue to refine and roll-out the changes this week, we would love to get your feedback and suggestions - admin@funnode.com.

Within a few weeks, we will be launching our first mobile app for Android and iOS. If you're interested in testing the app before our official launch, please let us know :)

December 27, 2019 - Blackjack and Tokens

We are happy to introduce tokens on FunNode! These tokens can be earned by beating players/bots in any of your favourite FN games. We will soon add daily prizes to help you collect tokens as they will be needed for scheduled tournaments. There will also be a new leaderboard for players with the most tokens so start piling-up those tokens now.

After releasing Blackjack last year, we have spent considerable time speeding-up and improving the UI/UX for players. Much time has been spent on making the code easier to work with so let us know if you want to code on FN: admin@funnode.com.

August 5, 2018 - Backend Improvements

After months of work, we have finished the backend redesign and implementation. While there are still a few games that need to be revised before they are back online, these changes will allow us to scale our games and servers much better in the future.

We are now looking forward to working on new games and scheduled tournaments. We are also designing a new API for players to implement their own bots and connect them to the FunNode infrastructure - if you're interested, contact us at admin@funnode.com.

July 4, 2017 - Subscriptions

Happy Fourth of July to our 600+ players from the United States! We are announcing subscriptions for players who want to enjoy bonus features and an ad-free experience on FunNode. Subscribe soon to take advantage of discounted rates :).

We have also begun recruiting coders who want to create bots and games.

May 1, 2017 - To the Cloud

We have now migrated most of the FunNode infrastructure onto Google's Cloud Platform. This move also allowed us to rewrite and improve a lot of the backend code. Along with a faster UX, users will notice a simpler UI that is based on user-feedback.

February 14, 2017 - Hearts and Spades

For the first time in a long time, we're introducing two new games in the same month - Hearts and Spades! Both games are played with four people and have their own competitive bots.

We also upgraded our CSS/JS libraries to improve the UI/UX.

January 7, 2017 - Global Chatting

With global chatting, players now have the ability to talk to each other across different games and servers. We have also setup dedicated servers for chatting, at https://messaging.funnode.com.

While the past months have introduced various other features, some notable ones include passwords for private matches, joyride tours, and profile cards.

June 16, 2016 - Ludo

We now have one of the oldest board games, Ludo, along with a bot, called -AI-Requiem. In the past few months, we also upgraded to Foundation 6 and added motion-ui animations to some of the games. Finally, we added country pages to complement the player pages and provide a new platform for competition :)

March 4, 2016 - Backgammon

Fulfilling the top request, we have launched Backgammon with a decently skilled bot, -AI-Fitch. The past month or so has also brought some frontend changes, bug fixes, and improved auto-signin security. Finally, we are now only a few registrations shy of hitting 1,000 players on FunNode!

January 19, 2016 - Hold'em Poker

It took some time, but we finally have Poker on FunNode! Up to seven players can play no-limit matches with the fairly competitive -AI-Boeree. We also now have winning percentages and rating graphs on player pages.

October 16, 2015 - More AIs and Themes

Over the past couple months, we have added (1) new AIs for Kachuful and Pairs, (2) new pieces/sets to Chess, and (3) new colour themes for the site. In addition, the backend has undergone significant changes in order to improve the forums, requests page, and player pages.

July 5, 2015 - Align 4 and Avatars

Fulfilling several requests, we have coded and launched Align 4 (also known as Four in a grid-x and Connect 4) with a reasonably skilled bot, -AI-Sebastian. Also, players can now customize their profiles by uploading avatars!

May 4, 2015 - Responsive Design

While FunNode has always been functional on mobile devices, its static layout made the look and feel of the website somewhat poor. Taking a responsive web design approach, the CSS/JS of the website has been revised to provide an optimal viewing experience on all devices.

February 22, 2015 - Video Chat

In-match players can now enable video chatting! This new feature is implemented using WebRTC, a project that provides browsers and mobile applications with Real-Time Communications (currently supported by the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Opera).

Aesthetic improvements were also made to register/signin pages and the game boards.

October 9, 2014 - DKIM Implementation and Layout Improvements

Over the past several months, a lot of CSS/JS-related changes have been made to improve the look and feel of all the games on FunNode. Along with fixing some bugs in the backend, we have also implemented DKIM to validate all of our outgoing emails, ensuring they are not marked as spam.

July 12, 2014 - New Servers and HTTPS Everywhere

After spending much time reconfiguring the backend to scale more easily, we now have servers set-up in London, England, UK and Dallas, Texas, US! Having two servers will allow for better distribution of traffic, and allow players to choose the server that is closest to their geolocation. Also, FunNode can now be entirely browsed using HTTPS!

January 11, 2014 - Game Ladders and Offline Chatting

As requested by many, we have added ladder tournaments to all 2-player games. This will allow players to challenge players higher than them on the 'ladder'. The winner of the match will retain the higher position on the ladder. Along with the Elo ratings, these ladder rankings will help promote competition between players.

In addition, we now have email notifications for offline chats, match updates, and request fulfilments.

November 14, 2013 - Friends' List and Chess Review System

During the past couple months, there have been lots of improvements made to the interface and backend scripts. While most of the changes are subtle and performance-related, there are some worthy of mention: (1) a friends' list that allows players to keep track of their friends through the chat windows, (2) a review system for Chess, and (3) fixed memory leaks.

We have also invested in a new server that will serve as a development environment. This way, all changes can be tested before being seamlessly introduced to the production server.

September 10, 2013 - Reversi

To fulfill several players' requests, we have coded and released the board game, Reversi (also known as Othello). We have also made improvements and fixed bugs in the forums and backend scripts.

August 24, 2013 - FunNode Forums

We now have Forums! Although there's nothing flashy about the setup, it will help grow the FunNode community and make the website more visible to search engines.

A lot of time was spent in improving the look and feel of the game pages. Most notably, the connecting and disconnecting messages were made more deliberate, allowing players to easily recognize connection issues.

July 21, 2013 - More AIs and Bug Fixes

We have finally gotten around to adding more AIs to our games. Most notably, Chess got -AI-Stockfish and Go got -AI-fuego. We have also fixed a lot of bugs and annoyances over the past month. Keeping our fingers crossed, we believe there are no more bugs in any of the game interfaces :)

June 18, 2013 - Recoded and Restructured

A couple of weeks were spent redesigning and recoding significant aspects of the website. Most notably, the R5-client/server code was rewritten from scratch. In turn, many bugs have been removed and many, albeit subtle, improvements have been introduced. Also, the web directory has been restructured for SEO and aesthetic purposes.

May 18, 2013 - Liar's Dice

Introducing a new game for 3-5 players (no AIs) - Liar's Dice. Because of this game and Kachuful, we made a lot of modular changes to the backend that will allow for 2+ player games to be more easily integrated in the future. Along with other subtle fixes and improvements throughout the site, we have started showing ads on some of the webpages. We hope to eventually have sponsors that will help pay for server costs :)

April 20, 2013 - Server Upgrade with Proxies

After much consideration, we have invested in a better server - offered by Linode. Upon configuring the entire server from scratch, we migrated the files over, updated the server paths, and we are now Online.

With this configuration, all games will open websockets behind a proxy, allowing players to communicate everything through port 80 (i.e., firewalls should no longer be of concern).

March 17, 2013 - Checkers and Server Upgrade

Finally got around to coding and releasing Checkers with a rather naive AI - but, it'll suffice for now. Upgrading/Updating the server OS, Node.js and all the modules lead to a large increase in memory usage. Thus, we had to upgrade the server from 256MB to 512MB RAM - hopefully, it pays off.

As many people recommended, we now have it so that any match that completes in less than 3 moves, for any game, will not count towards your elo rating. Also, the background toggling is made seamless, while background and audio settings will be saved in cookies.

February 23, 2013 - Challenge System, Draw/Undo Requests, & Private Chatting

Apart from the usual bug fixes and subtle improvements, we have added many things over this past month. Firstly, players can now privately chat with other players and also challenge them to games. Draw and Undo requests have been added to some of the games.

January 27, 2013 - Bigger Boards, Rating Certainties and Requests

Over the past couple weeks, we have made many subtle improvements to the site as a whole. The most notable is that now we have layout toggling in Chess and Go, which will allow players to view a larger board.

We have added rating certainties that will influence the rating change after each game. The rating certainties will be decreased by 0.5% everyday. Finally, we have added a requests' section in this News page that will allow our players to request new features/games and report bugs to us with relative ease.

January 11, 2013 - AI Levels and Revised Review System

We have revised the review system for Go to allow for variations. We have also introduced varying levels of difficulties for the current AIs to allow players to choose an opponent based on its rating. Finally, we have made the elo rating calculations consistent through all the games and with appropriate handicaps. For this reason, we have also reset all the ratings - likely for the last time!

January 6, 2013 - HTTPS, About Page, and Review System

We have bought an SSL and setup https for the registration and signin pages. Moreover, we have created an About page that will keep track of all the sources and technologies used at FunNode. We have also setup BitCoin donations on the About page, allowing our players to support the site. Finally, we have implemented a review system for Go that will allow players to replay their games.

December 30, 2012 - Bug Fixes and Revisions

We have spent much of the past week fixing bugs, revising the front- and back-end code, and making subtle improvements to the games. We are now trying to integrate more AIs to the games, and make it possible for players to view their past games.

December 23, 2012 - Go

After significant time and effort, we have finally coded Go! Not only is the game up and running, we've managed to integrate the GNUGo AI into the game. Players be warned: the AI is no pushover :P

November 22, 2012 - Interface Improvements

We have finally added a background colour toggler - most people prefer a darker background, and now they have it! Also made some subtle changes throughout the site.

November 16, 2012 - Warships Improvements

Following up on more feedback, we have designed and coded an AI for Warships - Welcome [AI]_Bismarck - it is a decent AI that should keep most of you entertained. We also set the default timer increments for Warships to 0 seconds.

November 5, 2012 - Chess Improvements

Following up on some of our feedback, we have added significant improvements to our Chess game. Firstly, users can now drag-and-drop pieces instead of clicking twice to make a move. Also, we've implemented a premove feature that allows users to call their next move before their opponent makes his/her move. Finally, we have integrated the p4wn chess engine as our AI - it's not great, but it will challenge most players.

We also made some subtle changes to the interface for all the games - Enjoy!

September 16, 2012 - Register

We have finally updated our database and written some nice registration pages/scripts. Now, you don't need facebook to sign in - simply register, activate your account, and enjoy!

September 15, 2012 - Warships and Players' Pages

We are releasing Warships today! Everything seems to be working fine, without errors. Although the display may need to be improved (i.e., showing ships instead of just colouring the background), it will be ok for now.

We've added player-specific pages within the players page. Now, people can browse by player name and view all of the matches he/she has played in. Also added links to these pages in the leaderboards.

September 3, 2012 - Sockets.IO and Players' Page

We have finally upgraded our scripts from simple websockets to the very convenient Socket.IO. Now, our games will not only support older browsers, but also iOS devices. If there are still devices/browsers unable to play the games, please let us know.

Created a Players' page that lists all the registered players and their statistics. Still need to allow for more than 20 players to be listed/browsed, as well as personal player pages. Might add a leaderboards' page in the near future that may have a similar layout. Need to have a different purpose though..

August 18, 2012 - Kachuful

Releasing 'Kachuful' today - a very popular card game in India. Seems to be working fine with multiple players, and with in-game forfeits. Needed major revisions to the backend, but it doesn't seem to have affected the other games. Will need to run more tests to ensure everything is running as it should.

August 9, 2012 - Pairs

Releasing 'Pairs' today - basic card matching game that uses alot of the backend code used in Chess. Seems to be working perfectly. Will make some necessary improvements to the gameplay in the near future.

August 7, 2012 - Bug Fixes

Found and fixed a bunch of bugs throughout the backend code for chess. Also made it possible for images to be used for the chess pieces, instead of the unicode characters -- need to find some attractive images first.

August 4, 2012 - Chess

Spent the past week or so rewriting the backend and frontend code for Chess. There are no reported errors for Chess (as of now) - hopefully that lasts. Because the backend/frontend code for chess was made modular, future games should be able to reuse most of the code with relative ease.

July 16, 2012 - funnode Launched

Finally decided on a domain name - registered it with NameCheap.

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