Unlock The King
Shuffle chess pieces to clear a path for its titular centerpiece in Unlock the King. While its 100 stages aren’t of consistent quality, the sheer quantity offered for its minimum price point make it an easy shoe-in for brain teaser fans.
Similar to its developer’s other works, UTK is about making way for its central figure. Apart from pawns, every piece makes an appearance here, differing primarily in quantity and stage geometry to keep you invested. It’s a simple formula that’s guaranteed to work, though it is admittedly repetitive. Bread-and-butter chess boards make way for switches in its late half, transforming the playing field and opening up new possibilities.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Chess Sokoban Games.
Imagine it’s Black Friday, and you’ve made the misguided decision to take advantage of some deal you are convinced is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (if only because you went and got trampled). When the clock strikes midnight and myriads of strangers produce an assortment of cutting utensils—some legal and some not so legal—you realize you goofed, and it’s time to abort. You shove strangers, dodge descending blades, leap over toppled grandmas, and shimmy through paths so narrow they would make a spelunker fill their adult diaper. You now understand the gameplay concept of Unlock the King.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Unlock The King 3
So, you haven’t learned your lesson and you’re here for your third outing on Black Friday. Set your watch and hit the panic button, because it’s go time. When the clock strikes midnight and myriads of strangers produce an assortment of cutting utensils—some legal and some not so legal—you realize you goofed, and it’s time to abort for the third time in a row. You shove strangers, but not too many since it’ll make it easier for the devil to follow you. Dodge descending blades, leap over toppled grandmas, and slap on your gravity boots so you can take to the walls and bypass the mob. You now understand the gameplay concept of Unlock the King 3.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Chess Sokoban Games.
The bugs, poor camera, and annoying 3D boards of Unlock the King 2 are gone, but now the camera is Y-inverted, there are fewer levels, and it feels as though the developer just didn’t care about the quality of the puzzles anymore. So many sections of puzzles, including pieces and buttons, go unused – and not even in a “red herring” manner. They don’t serve to distract or confuse because there’s no reason to consider them.
It’s cheap and I didn’t hate it, but it’s not really worth the time. The first in the trilogy was the best.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
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.
Unlock The King 2
2D is replaced by 3D puzzles. It is more complicated now, harder to manage and understand all the possible move options and possibilities.
At least Undo option is added - that I missed during the Part 1. But this option is buggy sometimes, made the piece invisible.
Level 14 - this was not explained before that you can rotate the view with your right mouse button. Discovered that the second before I was giving up and planned to look for solution. And the rotating stops working sometimes, you need to close the game to make it work again.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
upd: What you can read below is my original review of the first version of this game. I was pretty upset with my first impression which didn’t live up to my expectations, as you can see it. After I posted this review, the developers were fast to respond, and they fixed things I noted here, and I really, really appreciate it. I played this game to the completion and I must say that now it is a good example of a minimalistic puzzle. So feel free to try it and support the developers. Also, I want to thank Raphael, one of the devs, for the answer you can also read below. It means a lot for me, too.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game