Zen Chess: Mate in Four Reviews

The final installation in the Zen Chess series promises to be the most complex, having to think 4 moves ahead - however, also, it is the weakest, and not quite unexpectedly. To the forefront comes the problem of Mi2 and Mi3 - the game is a puzzle game with a chess skin, and not a chess game. The game doesn't counter your moves, it just reacts like an automaton - if you make the right move, then it makes its (pre-baked) countermove, if you make the wrong move, it just resets the puzzle. It was sort of OK for 2 moves, annoying but bearable for 3 moves, and really disappointing for 4 moves. In addition, the puzzles are markedly weaker than in the previous games. Having done the first 50 (which should be all, but then there are more?), these puzzles are 90% about check, check, check - there are hardly any where you need to find a clever setup move which leaves black with its pants down. The counter-moves the computer player makes are also sometimes suspicious - I'm not saying they are wrong, but they do look silly, like moving away from the attacking undefended queen instead of taking it. The game kept the nice interface of its predecessors, but that's hardly something difficult to do - with the more-often-than-not disappointing puzzles, I can't wholeheartedly recommend this 4th installment of the Zen Chess series.

This was a nice challenge. There are 100 carefully selected chess puzzles in this game where the solution was difficult but not unusual. Most of these patterns can be found in typical chess games. My only complaint was that after the 50th puzzle, the game stopped giving out achievements. That is a small problem but I like receiving achievements. Why stop them in mid-game? Thank you again developers for a great chess game. I will play through them again sometime to stay tactically sharp.

A player about 1200 ELO on chess.com can complete this game within 70 minutes. 一个chess.com的ELO分数在1200分左右的玩家可以在70分钟内通关这个游戏。 Obtaining full achievements only takes one hour (50 levels), but completing the levels requires at least two hours (100 levels). 获得全成就只需要一个小时（50个关卡），但是通关需要至少两个小时（100个关卡）。

Beautiful game, it's flawless. Lovely visuals, music, and very fun to play, and of course it's challenging. You can customise the way everything looks.

Contrary to preceding games in 'Zen Chess: Mate in N' series, Mate in 4 is no longer a casual game because planning moves ahead takes too much time and trying to complete the game in a shorter amount of time can get very annoying. The description of this game is misleading. There are 100 puzzles, not 300 puzzles.

There are some really good exercizes in here for developing calculation skills (as long as you calculate the entire puzzle to the end before moving even 1 piece. no matter how long the puzzle takes). However, some of the puzzles have more than 1 answer and the puzzle only accepts the one that it is programmed to accept. Which is annoying some times. Only noticed it on about 4 of the puzzles. Worth noting. The game description on the store page say's there are 50 puzzles, but there are 100.

If you want a harder challenge than Zen Chess Mate In 3, then try Zen Chess Mate in 4. These are pretty brutal, and it can be very difficult to work through the logic of why the king must move certain ways, and why some of your choices will be rejected. I have yet to find a puzzle that was not rock solid though, after having my blunders explained to me by better players. If you play chess, this will help practice thinking ahead enormously. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2577105048

In problem #47 there is a much shorter way to solve the problem than the actual solution. Other than that, I really enjoyed going through Zen Chess series. Thank you devs :)

Despite its many technical shortcomings, at its price point this would be a clear recommendation; however, puzzle 13 is broken, unplayable and unskippable, and 2 months later has still not been fixed.

It's pretty clear this game doesn't actually have the rules of chess programmed in, and you're basically clicking tiles rather than pieces and playing a game of Memory. You can click literally any square, even making illegal moves, and the game will happily let your misclick play out and restart the puzzle. If the game actually were a chess puzzle you wouldn't be able to move pawns backward, jump bishops over other pieces, capture the black king with yours, move a piece INTO ITSELF, etc. But you can in this game, especially by accident, and it just restarts the puzzle. You can't even cancel a piece selection. There's also no options menu. The game is always at full volume, always runs in fullscreen and always chooses the primary display. There's no way to change any of it in-game. It's a bit like a Flash game in that way. There are better chess puzzlers for free. I think once the illegal-moves issue is addressed, this game might actually be quite relaxing to play, but not as it stands.