Cooperative Chess
When your friends win, you win.
Co-op Chess occurs in rounds, and in each round you must occupy all the “!” squares.
Achieve checkmate for either side and you both win!
If you’ve read this far, you must want some feature details
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Customizable difficulty.
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Single-player mode if you want to learn in a safe place (or if that’s just your thing).
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Avatar customization unlocked by completing achievements.
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Private games with friends.
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Quality of life improvements beyond what’s normal for Chess apps
Cooperative Chess is part of what has retroactively been termed a “molasses jam” run by the Bay Area Dev Collective. The theme of the jam was to make a violent genre non-violent. Somehow the idea of co-op chess came up during a brainstorming session, and I knew immediately that I had to figure out how to make it work. And now you and a friend get to experience it yourselves.
The other molasses game jam games are also on steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556660/Shell_Out_Showdown/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1603590/My_Cousin_the_Rogue/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1603520/Save_Data/
Read More: Best Chess Board Game Games.
Battle Chess 4000
Battle Chess 4000 takes the classic game of chess and rushes it headlong into the future. Chess pieces become animated space-age characters, created from state-of-the-art digitized clay models; with the pieces animated moves being both intriguing and hilarious. Not only that but Battle Chess 4000 has a library of over 300,000 opening moves and an artificial intelligence that can handle any level of opponent.
Battle Chess 4000 features include:
- State-of-the-art animation from digitized clay models
Read More: Best Chess Board Game Games.
Knight’s Retreat
Knight’s Retreat is a simple chess-themed puzzler which requires careful planning to complete its 80 stages. While the difficulty isn’t consistent, it’s easy enough to play in short sessions, ideal for break times or multiplayer queues. It’s cheap, suitable for all ages, and awards achievements for completion.
Pros
✅ Easy to understand, with ample tutorial stages
✅ Pleasing low poly design, including different environments
✅ Chill music and SFX
✅ Multiple mechanics (sliding panels, flip switches, linked pieces)
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Chess Relaxing Games.
Too many bugs when using the undo button, such as some tiles becoming inaccessible, and sometimes it seems to undo a few moves at once at once (I’m not certain of this, but I sometimes notice that a few of my knights have somehow moved backwards on their own, which I assume was caused by me while undoing a different move), and when you move a piece onto a tile with a button and then undo the move, the effect of the button is reversed but the piece remains on the button. This game only allows you to undo one move per turn, so you can imagine how frustrating it can be when the undo button is as wonky as it is. This isn’t a problem for most levels, as this is a relatively easy puzzle game, but there is one particular level near the end that is significantly more complicated than the rest which I’ve been trying hard to solve, but the wonkiness of the undo button keeps forcing me to restart the whole level, which eventually led to me giving up on it.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Zen Chess: Blindfold Masters
Game has mistakes at least in 126 and 149 levels.
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Beautiful minimalist chess game, which challenges you not only solve the level but tests your memory capacity as well. It is challenging at start but, when you realize how to play, the experience is very immersive. Relaxing soundtrack, a trademark of Zen Chess series, makes a great overall experience. You must give it a try!
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
Zen Chess: Champion’s Moves
It’s okay, and sort of what I expected. I like the music, I like how you have the option to change the pieces & the coloring of board. I like how it occasionally mentions something about the game or the famous chess dude. It’s all very pretty. However, the colossal flaw is not showing you the entirety of the mating sequence. It just says you solved the puzzle & on to the next one, without showing you the end result. I want to see it play out the rest of the moves until checkmate is achieved (especially if it is a mate in 10 or more). What the developer could do is just put the entire game in each puzzle and let you scroll through the move list. That would make this game (& all of the Zen chess puzzles) soooooo much better. Ugh..frustrating! But okay, I grudgingly give it a thumbs up because I think these exercises will improve your chess game & I sort of like it.
– Real player with 16.7 hrs in game
What can i say, i liked Zen chess mate in 1, 2,3 and 4 moves. For 0.51 cents on sale i would say this a good deal on Zen Chess Champion moves. But i feel as if there are too many errors in the chess moves. On board #47 there is an illegal move made by the game. You can not put the kind in check but that is what it did. There are several boards you can finish with better moves but the game is inflexible. It feels wrong some how. Or maybe my chess skill is too high as the game is not really a challenge for me. I feel that this game is a miss somehow, it should of been better.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
Zen Chess: Mate in Four
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.
– Real player with 175.8 hrs in game
ATTENTION!
THIS IS A REVERSE REVIEW, WHICH MEANS IT WILL START FROM THE END TO THE BEGINING!
IF YOU LIKE CHESS, BUY THIS GAME! NOW!
FURTHERMORE, BUY ALL THE CHESS THEMED GAMES FROM MINIMOL STUDIOS!
I HAVE BEEN PLAYING THEIR GAMES AND THEY ARE ALL FREAKING AWESOME!
ZEN CHESS MATE IN ONE
ZEN CHESS MATE IN TWO
ZEN CHESS MATE IN THREE
ZEN CHESS MATE IN FOUR
ZEN CHESS CHAMPION’S MOVES
ZEN CHESS BLINDFOLD MASTERS
KNIGHT SWAP
UNLOCK THE KING
HANG THE KINGS
AS I SAID IF YOU ENJOY CHESS YOU SHOUD HAVE GOT ALL OF THEM ALREADY!!
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Zen Chess: Mate in One
ಠ_ಠ A decent minimalist chess puzzler, but it has significant sticking points.
I picked up Zen Chess: Mate in One when its bundles went on sale. While I definitely got my 59 cents worth out of this game, I can’t recommend picking it up for full price after going fully through the experience. If you’re serious about learning, you’re probably better with lichess.org .
You’ll practice many of your chess skills to get through this game.
– Real player with 6.0 hrs in game
75/100 Fun but lacks depth.
The game comprises 300 mate-in-one puzzles that I got through in 2.9 hours. They are nicely chosen/well constructed puzzles that would be a fantastic learning aid for someone newer to the game who is keen to improve their skills, and are a fun set of puzzles for more experienced players. I enjoyed it.
A few suggestions for improvement:
-firstly the music is really jarring, a volume control would be a great addition (there is just a mute button).
-secondly as soon as you solve, it immediately jumps to the next puzzle. It would be nice if there were an option for a mode where each puzzle pauses after you solve, to reflect on the puzzle and solution, eg displaying the unsolved puzzle, with the chess notation for the move now added on the side (with eg ability to press space to go to next puzzle).
– Real player with 3.8 hrs in game
Zen Chess: Mate in Three
The user interface is pretty straight forward, the game provides exactly what it offers, mate in 3 puzzles. However, I question if there are multiple solutions to some of these puzzles and the program only allows the answer it is programmed to accept.
– Real player with 46.4 hrs in game
THERE ARE NOT MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS!! DON"T LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE SAYING THERE ARE!! Remember your first move will almost always put the king in check. Your second move will have to check the king again, and with the third move you can checkmate. You should not have to brute force anything with this in mind. The Zen Chess series are some of the best on Steam. Buy them all!
– Real player with 17.6 hrs in game
Zen Chess: Mate in Two
Like Mate in One, except you have two moves to checkmate. Relaxing and a little more challenging than the first, otherwise the exact same layout. Some tips to keep you from frustration: You won’t put the king in check on your first move every board, but you will 80% or more of the time. Also, you will be sacrificing your queen on the first move quite a bit, so if you can’t figure out the solution, try killing your queen!
– Real player with 164.9 hrs in game
The game contains 150 chess puzzles and the objective of the game is to… you guessed it - mate in two moves. The simplistic UI is identical to the first game in the series: Zen Chess: Mate in One and the high quality of the game is very similar. The only flaw of this title is that the game requires you to find out the single solution the developer wants you to follow. In multiple solution levels only one is the desired one.
– Real player with 15.0 hrs in game
Chessplosion
This is a great game that uses its simplicity and straightforward chess moves, to combine it into a deep and complex gameplay as you’ll constantly be planning 2 moves in advance.
The cute look and simple-at-first-glance aspect makes it a super fun and enjoyable experience, which leads to harder challenges as you progress.
There’s even multiplayer with lobbies that would make fighting games blush!
Worth every bit of the price, it’s a small and well put game.
– Real player with 10.2 hrs in game
EDIT: After actually finding a couple of people to play the game with, I can conclude that online is currently unplayable. Constant disconnects and the match only begins after 2-3 times of you rehosting the lobby. With one person we couldn’t play properly even after 10+ rehosts and as a result I could only really play with just 1 person. All three of us tried Remote Steam Play instead but only one of us had a controller, and the game DOESN’T allow you to use a single keyboard for multiple players. So yes, don’t buy the game if you want to play online, and be wary about local play requiring controllers. The developer says they’re busy fixing bugs so hopefully the disconnects will get fixed at some point, but it’s already been some while since release so it will most likely have a long-term mark on online play and online player base.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game