Last updated on December 12th, 2025 at 02:54 am
Chess Universe – Play Online – Strategy Game Review
Chess Universe – Play Online is a Strategy/Board/Entertainment game from Kings of Games, d.o.o., first launched in 16th March 2020.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 4,364+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess Universe – Play Online Stand Out
NEW MAJOR UPDATE – ISLAND ADVENTURES IN PLAY VS COMPUTER!
Your chess adventure just got a massive upgrade! Play vs Computer now takes you beyond standard matches into a world of exploration and rewards. Travel across mysterious islands, face unique Computer challenges, and claim treasure as you master each level.
The journey begins on the Starting Positions island:
You start every match with the classic chess setup and your full set of 16 pieces.
- Defeat opponents to choose rewards from a fresh prize list.
- New challengers appear every 24 hours, each bringing new rewards.
- Beat all 3 opponents in a cycle for bonus treasure.
- Computer difficulty adapts after each respawn to match your skill.
From here, more islands await — each with its own twist, challenges, and rewards. Will you unlock them all?
MAIN FEATURES
PLAY UNLIMITED ONLINE CHESS GAMES
Battle players from around the world and climb your country’s leaderboard.
MULTIPLE GAME MODES
Choose Blitz, Bullet, Rapid, Easy Mode, or explore Play vs Computer Islands at your own pace.
PLAY VS COMPUTER ISLANDS – DAILY CHALLENGES
Explore themed islands with unique chess challenges.
CHESS LESSONS FOR ALL LEVELS
From basics to master-level strategies — over 1,000 lessons by top coaches.
PLAY CHESS WITH FRIENDS
Invite friends and enjoy fun, competitive matches online.
CREATE YOUR GAME
Use the Create Your Game mode in Play vs Computer to set up custom matches and practice your favorite positions in 9 different difficulty levels.
Chess transcends languages — xadrez, ajedrez, satranç, schach, şahmat — but it’s always the ultimate game of strategy.
Chess Universe combines beautiful design, fun progression, and powerful learning tools: Hints, Undo, Game Review, Replay, and Analysis. Earn rewards, unlock boards, and level up your style while mastering your skills.
It’s your move. Download Chess Universe now and begin your island adventure.
VIP Membership Subscription:
- Unlock all islands in Play vs Computer Islands, exclusive boards and sets, special effects, VIP avatars and pets, unlimited hints, ad-free play, and 40 gems weekly.
- Terms of Use: (standard Apple Terms of Use (EULA)): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
ABOUT CHESS UNIVERSE:
Created by chess Grandmasters and gaming experts to blend world-class chess with game-like adventure.
Stay updated:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChessUniverseApp
X: https://x.com/chess_universe
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess Universe – Play Online is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 1st December 2025
Recent improvements include:
- We’ve improved the match analysis. The new GAME REVIEW is more detailed, comprehensive and faster.
- Unlock the new CRAZY CHESS ISLAND. Beat the computer with 5 queens vs 15 knights or 10 rooks vs 15 bishops.
Download & Availability
Chess Universe – Play Online is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Chess Universe – Play Online on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Like the game but tired of bing paired with lower ranked players. Maybe have it to were we can find higher rank players.
Please help. Still having this issue.
Would be perfect if the bots didnt freeze halfway through a game and we have to restart every time :/.
Level 18 in the A B C Chess school is still impossible to win. The December 21 review identified the problem, and on June 14, 2021 it has not been resolved.
This was a fun alternative to the major chess platforms until they became more aggressive with the ads it is now something we have to delete. Im not paying for you not to annoy us with ads find a more creative way to make money. Also why is there to disable the noise from the stupid cannons people shoot.
Nice, Im happy working on the puzzle cross fights, it feels challenging & good.
This game is great. It has lots of incentives that other chess games dont. Its also helps to improve your speed and strategy in a very fun way. Highly recommend.
They are new and smaller than other chess websites but they offer a different environment than them with more animations.
We love how it really challenges you.
Great awesome graphics and rewards love it.
Revising our one-star review to establish we were able to make contact with the developer and get our questions answered – though they made it very difficult! Fortunately, their new site has a contact us button and they have been responsive. The app itself is quite good. We enjoy the training towers, even if they could stand more explanation (something we are told they are working on), and gameplay is great with lots of options for different types of games. Im a little old for the cutesy theme items but if it draws in more folks to learn and play, all the better. Recommend.
Need better options for login! Ie, username.
Terrible game Dont play if you expect to get credited when you win.
The app moves pieces to where we dont want them to go lost some games because its making moves for us.
At first it seemed too competitive, but now Ive found we love the 30 second games! Constant rewards will keep you hooked.
We enjoyed very much Chess Universe app. The animations are funny (try the cannon for fun ..)and the challenges are worth the time to spend with them,. You always learn something new with chess here, The players are real and sometimes hard to beat even at lower levels 1600 or less.
This app needs to have the rating increment fixed. Whenever we play against both a higher rated opponent and lower rated opponent, our rating usually goes down by more than 10. When we play against a lower rated and higher rated person, goes up by very less. Please improve.
We downloaded the app because the idea of having some cool animations and unlocks based on your games was a fun one. Unfortunately, the ads are too much for us. The ads that players can choose to watch to unlock certain items are fine, but when browsing through menus to get stopped with a mandatory 30 second ad? Not for us. The other gripe we had, is there should be an option to mute all players. Every game we lost, the opponent felt it necessary to emote non-stop before playing the final move … With no mandatory ads on the menus and the option to mute all emotes, Id definitely give the app another shot.
What is the best way to get the gems in the game to unlock towers? There is nothing we can do other than watch a video that will only give us one gem. And some of the towers cost like 30-70 gems. We cant do any more towers until we have enough gems to get one.
Excellent for beginner informative.
Everything is great. Only issue we see is puzzle 27 in mate tower is impossible. We think the rook above black king was supposed to be a different piece.
We love the puzzles, it really makes you think it out.
Chess academy, ABC chess school, level 18 to be exact is the first issue ive had with the game. This level deliberately makes us lose. No matter what moves it gives us the option to pick, it WILL NOT let us win. We had mate in 4 MOVES and still it would not give us the option to get mate!! (Its a check mate with the queen, guarded by the bishop and still, the game would not let us do it). Also, if If we use hints only, STILL does the game make you lose -_- Is this a deliberate way to make people use gems to get more moves or something.
We like the game. However we dont see an option to play with increment which has been standard for chess especially online for many years now. As an example most blitz is played at 3 minutes with a 2 second increment. Graphics and ease of use is excellent. Fix the time controls and to will be outstanding.
Ive already learned so much using this app.
Some challenges are unsolveable without spending gems for extra turns.
We have learned so much in two days! Thank you.
Really cool app. Love the art design and overall direction of the game. It's different compared to most chess apps that are meant to be serious. This is fun and still challenging. We're learning a lot from it.
We get a call in the middle of the game, we ignore it and it says we resigned Also theres no way to add a move confirmation, so if your finger were to slip youve just committed a huge blunder. ENJOY YOUR GOOFY AVATARS AND PETS THOUGH.
Chess app is ok, wish there was mored options,.
Great app but we cant get PvP to work. It constantly says our buddy is unavailable.
We reinstalled the app but It wont restore our purchases! Waste of money.
Add match making, and more animations… Nothing is moving in game. It would be cool if we could see our attacks happening from each players screen (animated). Close to being a fun animated chess that is actually playable and not too confusing.
- Its nearly impossible to earn to acquire new things in this game. Make them easy to get. Youre asking too much of us. 2. Allow players to stay in touch and send messages to each other.
Great for practicing and playing real opponents online.
This game is our go to. The whole game experience is outstanding we mean its astronomically outstanding. We mean honestly Ive never played a chess game thats so perfected in imperfect imperfection in our entire life on earth. Yet they dont show how many hints your opponent applied to the war which is a downer yet others than that all pros for us its the best chess game we ever played.And believe us we mean the best.
Very nice chess board setting where you can angle the playing board to your satisfaction.
10 out of 10 game been playin for 3 years now best chess game underrated we at least have to play one game each day and the chess lessons especially hooked up im learnin new moves from grandmasters thank you for this we cant receive emails btw.
We rated this game a 5 star game because of the learning experience is not only easy to learn its fun to learn bc of the different courses they offer . Love this game so much we would recommend to any beginning chess player.
Learned how to play about 4-5 months ago and Im just simply in love with this game.
Very helpful when we made an accidental purchase and getting a refund on it, appreciative of the customer service. Solid gameplay as well.
As a convicted felon, we gotta say-Chess Universe hits different. Its like this game was coded straight from our subconscious. The decisions, the chaos, the slick-talking characters, it all fits perfectly. It doesnt fight against our common sense-it flows with it. Harmony. Like the game knows us.
This app is great! Its easy to get through and very user friendly. This app is a good way to learn the game of chess. Highly recommend.
It combines the best classic elements of chess with some nice level of customization between sounds and graphics that can be earned through playing well.
We love your app and use it daily but be warned a lot of cheaters will use the 15:00 minute game so that during the game they can use an alternate app while in a game. Developers: Please add a report feature our opponent left the game twice and re-entered to do a move immediately and suspect of using an app on another device during the game. Thank you.
Great game. We have no complains.
What an exhilarating game! We're absolutely hooked! The chess theme adds an intriguing twist, and the kingdom setting immerses you in an epic adventure. It's incredibly entertaining and keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Our husband found this app. We play each other when we are together or away at work, etc. It is also a great way to learn chess and clean your skills. We also like that we can message each other even though we have text messages lol.
Why do games disconnect?! Ive lost many games because of this irritating problem! The game times us out , and then disconnects! We like the game cause it pits you against same level player. But the disconnecting is extremely irritating! Otherwise Id give you 5stars! Fuegassi.
We had more fun playing on Chess Universe in one night than we ever have playing on Chess.com or Lichess.org in the past 10 years.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.25.8
- Size: 299.11 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, PT, RU, ES, TR
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Frequent/Intense Contests
- Developer: Kings of Games, d.o.o.
Last updated: 1st December 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Board | Developer: Kings of Games, d.o.o.