Is there a generic platform to allow me to customize the rules to a board game. The board game uses a square grid, similar to Checkers or Chess. I was hoping to take some of the work out of creating this computer opponent, by reusing what is already written.

I would think that there would be a pre-written routine for deciding which moves would lead to the best outcome, and all that I would need to program is the pieces, legal moves, what layout constitutes a win/lose or draw, and perhaps some kind of scoring for value of pieces.

I have seen chess programs that appear to use a recursive routine, so they think anywhere from 2 to 20 moves ahead to create varying degrees of difficulty. I have noticed this on chess.com. The game I am programming will not be as complex.

Is there a platform designed to be re-used for different grid/piece based games.

JavaScript would be preferable, but Java or Perl would be acceptable.