Chess Puzzles Reviews

It's a puzzle game. So the developer doesn't need to write an AI for it - just move trees! Predetermined "best moves" thought up by people who know how to play chess - for every possible move the player could make. You don't need to be good at writing complex chess AI, you just need to pay a chess player or two a few dollars. Somehow this game gets it wrong. Many puzzles the computer does not make the best move in response to your move. Several cases where the game does not even have a complete move tree - it doesn't have a response to your move in its tree - so you just lose. Example: https://i.imgur.com/JJF5SLh.gif Notice how the problem allows for 4 moves, and that my very next move, no matter what the computer does, will be checkmate. Example 2: https://i.imgur.com/nxaNG31.gif Checkmate in 2 missed by developer...K-B7, C5, Q-C5 Terrible.

Developer has a strange sense of humor. Many puzzles can be solved in fewer moves than stipulated. Occasionally opponent refuses to move or puzzles seem unsolvable in the specified number of moves, but other than that game runs smoothly on my PC.

STARTS OFF easy, gets harder, ideal study to learn how to win in difficult positions

Do not recommend!!! As a semiprofessional chess player with a 1700 elo I tend to gravitate towards fun looking chess games. This is not one of them. The puzzles are very infuriating, since instead of most puzzles where you assume your opponent will make the best move, instead certain puzzles require you to assume they will play stupidly. Also, certain puzzles(eg. #134) have solutions that meet the move maximum but do not count as solutions. for instance my solution to # 134 you can play Qf3+, black goes Kg1, and you go Nh3++. But this is not listed as a solution. (edit: just played these same moves again since they were the only possible solution, and it worked the fourth time?!? Please fix this!) Some puzzles also call it a loss as soon as the black king has no more squares to move. Now this can easily be confused with stalemate which is a legal rule, but in stalemate you if the opponent has any other piece he can move he must continue play even if his king cannot move. In fact, this is one of the foundations behind some chess endgames. Overall, I would NEVER recommend this game until they fix a large portion of their puzzles.

These are not proper chess problems since 1) they do not follow best play but some random set of moves that the designer has come up with and 2) they frequently fail to even be labelled correctly (mate in 2 titled mate in 4 etc). The only fun you can make from this is working out what nonsense is the actual solution and frankly, that is not enough. It would have been a nice little game if it had some credibility but really, more effort was needed on the puzzles themselves. Even the ones which were not deeply flawed were just too easy.

I'm going to disagree with the negative reviews as i'm really enjoying this little game. I paid 40p for it so could hardly complain anyway. My Chess is rusty so i'm struggling with a couple of the puzzles but that'll be me not being as good at the game as I was as a kid. The negative reviews about pawns not being updated are not relevant. Changing the peices has no outcome on the puzzle on that board. You're not trying to play a complete game of Chess here so what does it matter. Those pieces obviously have no bearing on that puzzle. It's like saying Castling doesn't work - or En-Passant. They don't need to when you've got two moves and that's obviously not one of them. I'd like to know what the bulb icon that you can toggle on and off is though. WIth no game information at all and it having no noticeable effect, I'm a bit confused. TLDR: if you like Chess then this is a very cheap little brain game for you and there's plenty of puzzles to amuse you for a while.

Hilariously bad, the computer plays so so bad many mate in 3-4-5 puzzles become mate in 2... Some puzzles from DLC don't even work properly (i.e. you get "you lose" when you mate in 1)...

Broken as fuck as it is. Pawns down transform. Chess board have inverted colours. AI is so fucking stupid. I got a "Checkmate in 4 moves". All i had was a pawn just one step from the end and the king defending it. The pawn couldnt transform. How can you make such a shitty chess game and release it? Jesus fucking christ

There's a major flaw with this game. As the computer AI plays like a moron it allows you to solve a supposed mate in 4 or 5 in only 2 moves sometimes. These puzzles don't work. I got 100% on it without too much effort. Plus, when I got the 100% it wasn't even added to my perfect game count. That was the only reason I bothered to keep playing it and I never even got that.

Dev showed some love on design & music but I can't recommend this game, even when I bought it on sale, for less than one subway ticket value. This game does not follow chess mechanics at all, besides than some boards are unpresentable. Most of time is just "here comes the Queen". Rook & King against King checkmate? Really? is necessary? Two examples of checkmate in [b]3[/b] moves: 1) White: move Queen, check; Black: move random piece to avoid check. 2) White: Queen capture random piece, check; Black: move another random piece to avoid check. 3) White: Queen capture random piece, checkmate; YOU WIN. 1) White: move Queen, check; Black: AI plays like 3 years old child moving King to worst case scenario. 2) White: move Rook, checkmate in [b]2[/b] moves. Absolutely zero challenge, there is never a sacrifice envolved or a hidden combination. In fact the most difficult exercises to solve are those in which it is impossible to carry out a checkmate within the allowed movements, if you are facing an amateur with VERY basic level. But again, since this game doesn't fit on chess mechanics but instead is based on a series of pre-programmed movements, you can perform a checkmate in 3/4 movements in a situation that would not be possible under any logical aspect, not even against windows chess level -10. Finally, if all this were not enough, the game has achievements, but once you finish it, it's not added to your perfect game count, so it's the same thing that the achievements weren't there.