Chessformer
Chessformer is a grid-based puzzle platformer with Chess pieces. Each of the pieces moves as expected, but they fall down after moving and can’t move again until they stop falling. Pieces also stack on top of each other which is key to solving most levels. The goal in each level is to capture the opposing king, who is lazy and never moves, so don’t worry about losing any pieces.
Read More: Best Chess Grid-Based Movement Games.
Knight Swap
Two knights and their countrymen must overcome their racial differences as they are forced to rule over each other’s kingdoms for a fortnight. Will they recognize similarities between their goals, mindsets, behavioral patterns, abilities, and more, or will they focus on the differences and fail miserably?
The Good:
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You’ve probably seen other puzzle games that involve moving knights around, but this one manages to be unique.
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The puzzles are actually challenging.
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Throws a few gimmicks at you to mix things up: moving across different planes/gaps, portals, switches, etc.
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Chess Sokoban Games.
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 4.9 hrs in game
Knight Swap 2
The fight for racial equality continues as green, purple, red, and yellow knights are required to get along to make their way home. Can they trust their fellow knights to guide them to their goals? There are trapdoors this time, so they better hope so.
The Good:
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It gets very challenging. As of writing this, 12.1% of players made it past level 30 and 5.6% completed the game.
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The puzzles are actually challenging.
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The game offers up some new gimmicks along with the old: trapdoors, portals tandem pieces, board flipping, 4 different colors for pieces, and tandem switches.
– Real player with 15.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Chess Sokoban Games.
Not great, but good considering the cheap price
This sequel retains all the mechanics of the first game, while adding 3 new ones which happen to make it significantly harder than its predecessor. These mechanics are:
1. vanishing tiles: tiles which disappear once they are no longer occupied after being activated;
2. linked pieces: some knights have a light on the back of their necks. The light can be in 3 possible positions: top, middle or bottom of the neck. When you move a knight with a light, others with the same light pattern will copy its movement, as long as there is an available tile for them to move to.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
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
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: 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
Tatsu
If you like backgammon look no further. Very nice concept for a board game.Thinking to buy a physical version as well. The only problem is that the AI is way too easy even on hardest level. High difficulty level should be more about optimal play than hostile rng. But it is a casual game with endless replayability and serious depth. At the moment the players database is small -though you can always find easily an opponent- but this is a quality classic board game that will eventually be recognised. It is relaxing to play and it takes same approach as backgammon: One should play lots of games and with better players than him/her self in order to become better.
– Real player with 505.2 hrs in game
After more than 100 hours playing this game, I owe it a review. Blueline developed this digital version of the game, but it was a board game first. I believe it came out last year (2016), and it’s from the mind of John Yanni. He also designed the very very fantastic Hive. Blueline also developed the digital version of that game.
I know Tatsu won’t appeal to everyone, but I really dig it. It’s my come home from work, turn on some music/podcasts, and relax game. As much as I love Hive and other abstract strategy games, they can be very stress inducing at times. Tatsu certainly rewards strategy and skill, but it’s much more chill for me.
– Real player with 476.4 hrs in game