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Test your skills and capture the king in the digital version of the strategy board game

Test your skills and capture the king in the digital version of the strategy board game

Vote: (1,320 votes)

Program license: Free

Developer: Jorge Pardo Serrano

Version: 2.1.1

Works under: Windows

Vote:

Program license

(1,320 votes)

Free

Developer

Version

Jorge Pardo Serrano

2.1.1

Works under:

Windows

Pros

  • Simple interface
  • Lightweight & fast
  • Strong AI opponent
  • Supports hotseat multiplayer

Cons

  • No network play
  • Audio is buggy
  • Few added features like move lists

Free Chess is a sophisticated chess game that allows you play against another player in hotseat mode or against a strong AI opponent. It's designed with simplicity in mind, so all of the heavy lifting happens under the hood. When you first start up the game, you'll be presented with a very basic chess interface that almost looks as minimalist as possible.

In fact, the game presents you with a relatively antique-looking board that's supposed to call to mind the whole look and feel of a traditional chess board. If you're a fan of the game in real life, then you'll already appreciate this aspect of Free Chess. Many serious players don't want something fancy getting in the way of them sitting down for a game of chess.

Since the game is so pared down, Free Chess tends to be lightweight and fast. You might be used to having to wait for AI opponents to make a move, which can be irritating especially since people play chess against computers to avoid the problems that come from playing it in person. Free Chess makes moves quite quickly, so you won't usually need to force it to.

This functionality does come at a cost, admittedly. Free Chess offers very little besides a great chess experience. You don't have many other features besides the ability to move the pieces. About the only real configuration option besides the difficulty of AI opponents is the option of playing with a simplistic 2D board.

Gamers have sometimes complained that 3D chess boards are difficult to work with, since they don't really look all that much like they do in real life. Considering that many people used to solve chess problems in the newspaper, the fact that this title offers you a 2D board shouldn't at all be looked at as a negative. Chances are that most players are probably going to prefer it over the default setting since it gives you a genuine bird's eye view of the situation on the board.

Those who want to get a better look at how the AI player deals with these situations can instruct Free Chess to play a game against itself. Otherwise, they'll be free to play either side. Unfortunately, it's hard to randomize this process and that might offend serious players who believe that you shouldn't be able to select who goes first by fiat.

Casual chess players will love that feature, however, and they'll also like how easy it is to simply pick up and play the game. Assuming you already know how each of the pieces move, Free Chess can even be a pretty good introduction to the game's rules. While there isn't a dedicated tutorial mode, new players will certainly want to play as much as possible to get used to the way chess works so it's great to have an opponent who is always ready to give you one more game.

Something seems slightly wrong with the way that the game renders sound, but fortunately you can simply disable all sound effects via the game's option menus. There's not much noise in the game of chess anyway, so you're not really losing much by giving these up.

While you're in the menu, you'll probably want to take a take a moment to toggle the in-game music to off as well. For some reason, it doesn't actually work correctly. Users can cue up their own music in another program, so this isn't a drawback at all. The attached readme file links to a free catalog of classical music anyway, which fits very well with a game of chess.

Four different languages are offered in the options menu, but since there's so little text you could probably play Free Chess without knowing any of them. Nevertheless, users are free to switch between English, Spanish, Basque and Catalan as much as they want. Other than this, there really aren't many options for you to mess around with.

Considering that this forces players to focus on the quality of their play, that's probably a benefit in disguise. Serious players who are looking at trying to improve will love the level of immersion that they're provided with as a result. Best of all, you're free to save games at any time during a match.

All you have to do is click on a floppy disk logo that's found in the corner of your screen. You're only able to save a single game at a time, but those who aren't performing analysis on different positions are unlikely to have an issue with this. You'll more than likely just want to save a single game and finish it at a later date before starting a new one.

Pros

  • Simple interface
  • Lightweight & fast
  • Strong AI opponent
  • Supports hotseat multiplayer

Cons

  • No network play
  • Audio is buggy
  • Few added features like move lists

Pros

  • Simple chess game for recreational players.
  • Lets you play against the computer or a human opponent.
  • Lightweight program that runs fine on older PCs.
  • Appearance of the game can be customized, including a choice of 2D or 3D views.

Cons

  • No online multiplayer mode.

Free Chess is a simple chess game for Windows PC that lets you play the world's most popular board game on your computer. The game is relatively lightweight and runs on any computer using Windows XP and higher, so if you have an older PC that you would like to add a few simple games to, there's a high chance that it will work on it without much difficulty.

You'll likely enjoy this game if you're a recreational chess player that doesn't need the highly advanced features offered by chess programs aimed at more advanced players. The graphics are of very good quality for such a simple and free game. You can choose between a 3D view which lets you rotate the chess board up to 180 degrees as you play or a far more simple top-down 2D view. There are a few visual customization options allowing you to adjust some visual elements, such as the look of the board and chess pieces. The game also comes with a background music option that you can turn on or off depending on your preference.

The game controls are quite simple, so if you know how to play chess, you won't have any problems getting started right after installing the game. One small disadvantage of Free Chess is that it requires you to select on the piece you want to play, then click on the chessboard square where you want to take it to, instead of being able to use the mouse to drag and drop the pieces like in many other PC chess games.

You can choose to play a chess match against the computer's AI or against another player on the same PC. There's currently no online multiplayer mode that would let you play against others on the Internet, which might be a bit disappointing for those who enjoy playing chess games against human opponents from all over the world.

When playing against the computer, the game lets you choose from six difficulty settings. This feature allows you to have fun playing chess, whether you're a beginner or an expert that has been playing the game for many years. You also have the ability to save your game and come back to finish it at a later time.

To conclude, Free Chess is a simple Windows chess game that provides you with an enjoyable way to stay entertained. While it lacks advanced features commonly found in more serious chess program, those who play the game purely for fun will probably enjoy it. As the program is under 8 MB in size and doesn't require much in terms of system resources to run, it's a perfect game for older PCs.

Pros

  • Simple chess game for recreational players.
  • Lets you play against the computer or a human opponent.
  • Lightweight program that runs fine on older PCs.
  • Appearance of the game can be customized, including a choice of 2D or 3D views.

Cons

  • No online multiplayer mode.