Description

Indeed, Chessie is yet another chess program. However, it is special in that it fulfills a need other programs don't address well: the need for a very intuitive chess opponent, who does not allow you cheating, e.g. taking move back, removes the opportunity for misclicks, plays at many different, easy levels, but strong levels as well, etc.

We built Chessie as we needed a chess opponent for our kids, who were learning chess. We did not want a program that shows your level in the game, allows changing things during the game, like the level, the side, the clock, etc.; in short, we wanted a program that simulates a real player playing in a real game. We also wanted to have several levels for beginners (it now includes 5 levels dedicated to simulate kids playing style!) and a user interface that is suited for children. Finally, we wanted to record all games played so we could analyse them after the fact.

So we built Chessie. We hope you will like it, whether you are a kid, a parent, or simply a chess player who is looking for a nice opponent. And whatever your level, we welcome your feedback as to how you think we could make Chessie an even more pleasant chess opponent for you and your family.

Screenshots (click to enlarge)

Help

Chessie is so intuitive that you should not read this page more than once...

To use it, just click on new game unless you launch it for the first time, select your level, adjust the clock if you want, and choose your color. You can then play by clicking the piece you wish to move and then clicking the square you want to move it to.

Chessie remembers your last game upon exit so you don't need to ever save or open games explicitly unless you want to save them somewhere special and play multiple games in parallel.

And an important note for parents and players: all games played with Chessie are autosaved under your roaming application data folder, e.g. "C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\chessie" on Windows 7, in an xml format that can be opened and read in any text editor. This allows you easily analyzing your games afterwards if you'd like.