Chess! (2023)

Most top reviews here seem to be negative and from years ago, to the point I didn't buy this for a long time, even though it was exactly what I've been looking for. So I feel obliged to say that... It works now, it's great and worth its price. Perfect for training to play chess over-the-board a bit, as most 3D chess games, but the Lichess integration is the real killer feature here, hard to compete with that, so this is the one I'll stick to. It does... crash and close sometimes, which seems to happen with other users in the discussion board. That should be fixed ASAP. But for now I can simply reopen and continue the match, I can even continue on Lichess while the game reloads, so it's not the end of the world. Still prevents me from giving this anything above 3/5, though. Since it's based on Lichess I can't help but wish this game itself was a bit more "open" too. Not necessarily open source but maybe allowing some way to import custom scenes and boards, that would make it the ultimate 3D chess game, would become 5/5 even with bugs.

Requires you to log into lichess.org in order to play. Can't play offline. The game seeks to create a rich graphical experience, but in the end it often causes the game to crash. When the game doesn't crash, the problem is there are light glares coming off the board and pieces that make it difficult to figure out what some pieces are supposed to be (queen? king? bishop?). Performance is seriously held back by the unnecessarily high graphics quality. The 'photo-realistic' graphics cause more problems than they solve. When you are playing, the game is rendering tons of stuff in the background that has nothing to do with the game. I'm running a 3080ti and at high graphics settings, I'm getting about 67fps for a game that essentially has static pieces with no animations going on. How does that make any sense from a development perspective?! It's chess. Keep the UI and graphics simple. Also, the system requirements don't disclose you need to create a lichess.org account to play (saying that it 'integrates' is highly ambiguous).

It's lichess, but you can't have a 2D screen. It's pretty annoying.

Solid Gameplay, never waited more than 3 seconds for a game

why would you do everything so momplicated... sorry it's a refund

Yes, I would like to recommend Chess! for everyone.