Chess Universe+

So I’m a little frustrated by the Developer’s Response to Jakey Donkey Brains’ review where they describe the learning- process as not great. Since with every other comment they seem pretty open to hearing constructive criticism, I was surprised to read their reply which actually sounds pretty defensive, to be honest. I have to agree with them 100% - it’s just not guided, at all. I think the issue is that the developers are so far along on the learning curve, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a beginner. A few things to consider: A. Pros are not the best teachers. B. Giving answers (what the hints do, the response “wrong” or even the correct move) is not teaching. What would be much much more informative is seeing - actually seeing in an animation - what is wrong / correct about the move. So it becomes exactly what they say, “A gamified repetition with little to zero actual instruction.” I was pretty excited at first to learn chess with this app. But now I have to agree with them - Not a good choice, even though it’s free - for beginners. Again — reading over your reply to them — Seeing the best move is not the same as being guided / informed about why it’s the best move.

This is a great game. Fun additions and good chess learning tools. My only two complaints are that once you open a chess game, if you close the app, the game will end. In other chess apps, you can open a game and it will remain open after you close the app, and you can visit different parts of the app while waiting for your turn and what not, and then you can come back to the game whenever you'd like. Also, it would be nice if there was an unlimited time option for online games so long as you could leave the game and come back to it after you close the app or use other parts of the app. Other than that it's a great game. Also, notifications would be nice. For example, when the free chest is available, it would be nice to receive a notification of that on your phone even if you have the app closed.

It’s a great game and all, with pretty good stuff, but the difficulties of the bots are crazy. Your idea of “easy” is a little stupid. It has the skills of a grandmaster, but sometimes makes the blunders of a rookie. Hard mode is unbelievable. The bot took both my rooks so easily, I felt cooked already. I managed to capture his queen but soon after he promoted his pawn to a queen. Near the end, I had 5 pawns, a queen, and a king, and the bot had all that plus a rook. He had the chance to checkmate me but blundered by no longer checking me. I was only lucky his king was stuck behind his 3 pawns so I can mate him with my queen. All I’m asking you guys to make the difficulties a bit easier, because I’m very good myself, and I still struggle a bit. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be one of those people who like to play chess but aren’t really that well at it. So they could have a better time if the difficulties were changed. The rest of the things in the game seems to fine to me.