Esfera Chess

It is a fun game!!!

Nuff said. Fix please.

This game is fantastic on many levels. It's: - Unique (though "inspired by chess" as authors posit) - 3D - Challenging - Easy to play, fast/responsive gameplay - Stylish : light shading, opacity, color scheme, subtlety of UI All of these, as well as the fact that it's TEEEENY-TINY (less than 1MB for version 1.0), demonstrate that the developer(s) are immensely skilled in design and development. It has not crashed on me in over an hour's play (I'll update this if it does). It took me about ten minutes to figure out the legal moves for a few pieces (e.g. pawns, bishops, and the queen). After a total of 15 minutes, I won the first game I played (admitting I had to undo a half-dozen times because I didn't understand how my and the opponent's pieces moved). So it's not terribly difficult once the pieces get spread out. The AI seems to be a simple n-look-ahead" algorithm, going forward only 2 or 3 moves. Great as it is, I can't give it 5-stars because the "Rules" info is insufficient as a tutorial on how to move pieces. The game needs another page to describe how pawns and diagonal moves work. For pawns, it's important to understand what's its front, backs, and sides. Likewise, diagonal moves can be initially confusing since it's nothing like chess. The pentagonal nature of the board makes things just different enough - but still doable and fun. Once a good tutorial is added, I will happily increase my rating. I would also like to see a Hint ("Suggest my move") button to let newbies learn and master the game. The popularity of this game also becomes stunted by the spherical "board". So I suggest adding a second (easier) board that's a semi-sphere... This would alleviate concerns raised by other reviewers about having to "watch your back" as well as the difficulty in forming defensive-lines, as chess allows. I welcome the developer(s) to add online gameplay, against random or selectable (named) opponents -- which would give the app significant longevity. Without this, most users will tire of it. I recommend you also improve the AI if you make the suggested board changes. Games like this, and their likeability depend greatly on how "winnable" it appears. If users are intimidated by the game's/board's/AI's complexity, they won't come back (no one willingly enters a no-win arena). So keep balance between the games difficulty of play/comprehension & its AI ability. Again, big kudos for a very good app -- in pretty much every sense.

Ummm...settings? Difficulty levels? Ability to store old games or at least game results? There are no settings or preferences of any kind. It seems like a no brainer to at least be able to choose difficulty. Unless I'm missing something. Otherwise very fun, transfixing even. Rotation of the sphere is fluid and easy. Pretty hard but I beat the computer on the 2nd game, I hope it stays challenging. One other gripe, every time the computer plays the view shifts very fast to where you last played. Too fast, it's disorienting. It would be great if it transitioned a lot more slowly, maybe even be able to adjust the speed.

This is an excellent adaption of chess, but what it gains from the design and execution, it loses from complexity. Possible moves are very difficult to understand without the "preview". Auto-rotation sphere after computer turn is confusing, too quick and should toggled on/off. Flipping pieces which are on the underside is cute but adds to the confusion.

Awesome graphics and controls, but gets old fast; I mostly just use it as one of the apps I show people to demonstrate the awesomeness of my iPod.

I was searching google for board games that take place on a sphere and found this. I love the smooth control and graphics. Very fun! And free!!

Cannot attack when in "check". Please fix? Great game! I love it.