Not Chess
Step into the gaming world with Not Chess, one of the top $1.99 games in the App Store! Crafted with creativity and innovation by Tepes Ovidiu, this captivating Casual game is bound to grab your attention. With its content rating of 4+, it caters to a wide audience. Ever since its release on 8th December 2020, it has been constantly updated, with the latest version rolled out on 26th March 2021.
Whether you have a liking for Casual, Puzzle, or Entertainment games, Not Chess is sure to keep you hooked!
User Ratings
Join the crowd of 244 gamers who have given their verdict on Not Chess.
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Dive into Not Chess
Wait, if this game is NOT chess, then what is it? It’s a mind blowing puzzle game with some simple chess rules and a few special ingredients to make it fun and challenging for everyone!
-How to play?
You start with one single piece. Across the board, there are a few chess pieces strategically placed. When you take a chess piece, you become that piece and inherit its abilities. The level is complete when you collect the coin.
-Who is this for?
It doesn’t matter if you have no idea how to play chess or if you are a chess grandmaster. This game is for everyone. The tutorial covers all the required information in a fun, interactive way.
-Challenging?
While this game is not chess, some levels will have a higher difficulty, requiring careful planning and strategy, making this a great way to put your brain muscle to work.
-Features:
- 3 Difficulty levels: easy, medium and hard; with limited moves and limited time to complete the levels.
- Zen color palettes and relaxing soundtrack
- Game Center.
- No ads, no in-app purchases; buy it once and enjoy it forever.
- Haptic Feedback.
- Optimized for all devices;
- Simple controls, suitable for any age.
- Play Offline, no internet connection required to play
- No violence, stress-free; play at your own pace.
-Developer notes:
Thank you for playing “not chess”. I put a lot of love and effort into making this game. Don’t forget to review the game and share it with your friends. Use #notchess on social media!
What’s Fresh in the Latest Update?
Discover what’s new in the recent update of Not Chess on 26th March 2021:
Thanks for playing Not Chess! This update brings chess pun iMessage stickers :)
Hear from the Players – Not Chess Reviews
Find out what gamers are saying about Not Chess:
Fun game. Levels are pretty simple if youre a decent chess player and are familiar with piece movements. Good to relax after work. Hopefully devs will make more (tougher) levels in the future.
No ads, plenty of features, and unique game design. Our only complaint is the inability to make custom levels.
Knowing how each chess piece moves is the easy part. Using these moves to solve puzzles is what makes this game so fun. With 4 different level difficulties, packed with tons of levels per difficulty, this game will keep you solving puzzle by puzzle, anxious to complete the next challenge that awaits you. Many levels are relatively simple, requiring few moves to think through and complete, while others are more complicated, making you have to think several steps ahead in order to succeed through the level. The developer also doesnt collect any data, which is a nice addition to this already amazing Not Chess game. Overall, this game makes its wonderful visuals, gameplay, and privacy definitely worth the purchase.
Im really enjoying this soon-off of chess. We hope to see more levels or similarly released games in the future.
There are plenty of levels, difficulty ramps up nicely, and there are enough chess moves to satisfy those who enjoy classic game. We do wish the pieces were easier to distinguish, but an enjoyable puzzle game.
Im not one to write reviews but this game blew away our expectations so here we are. As a chess newbie this puzzle variant of chess is perfect to start thinking a couple moves ahead. Great idea and great execution!
We cant get past level 87. Ill get it eventually (I hope).
Its definitely a fun twist to chess. Some are easy and some are a little more difficult. Needs more levels! Adding puzzles with 10 steps instead of 4 or 5 steps.
This is really an excellent game and a lot of fun to solve these puzzles. We have never seen one like it before, and for that we applaud the developer for his creativity and the uniqueness of this game. If you know how to play chess already, then it should make it easier to play through these puzzles, but it certainly is not a requirement since the app shows you possible moves for each piece that youre playing with. Here are a couple of suggestions that we think will make the game better: 1) A large number of puzzles in this game can be solved in fewer moves than you are allowed to make moves. This is okay for the easy and the medium level, however for hard and very hard levels the players should be given only the fewest number of moves possible to solve that puzzle in order to actually make it hard or very hard. Because of this we were able to go through the hundred puzzles in a relatively short period of time and wishing there were more puzzles to solve. 2) please keep adding puzzles regularly to keep the players interested to keep coming back. Thank you.
We beat all 100 levels in maybe 6 minutes max for every 10 levels. We started with Very Hard which was super easy but we really do play chess everyday for the last three years. Some thought is needed though if you play Chess. Coms solo chess or puzzles those are much harder and would recommend that if you want a challenge over this game.
As title said, the very hard levels are not as hard as some of the levels from lower difficulty.
The puzzle idea is great and we think it may help people who has little knowledge regards chess familiarize how each piece moves. However, the difficulty level is not progressing as it states in game, and overall not challenging enough. Like the graphic and music, but imo some background colors are too bright, more contrast between the pieces and the background maybe easier for audience eyes.
Loved this one. Wish there were more levels for sure, but did find the difficulty never ramped up either. Even into the last set of levels many times the board is filled up but we found solutions involving 2-3 less moves than allowed. Sometimes these didnt even require us changing pieces. Not sure if that was by design (confuse player with lots of pieces on board and more moves that necessary) but we never hit something we felt was a large challenge on our play through. But we overall enjoyed every moment of this one, and you can wipe progress and restart so we will likely hang on to it and do so at some point in the future. Definitely worth checking out though!
Im not a puzzle junkie but we were still able to solve all 100 levels in less than one day. We did not find that they became appreciatively harder as we progressed. One needs to be aware and of how chess pieces move.
We opened the game and went to very hard difficulty and beat the game in a single poop session!
It’s a simple game that is perhaps too easy at times, but we still enjoy the mild mental distraction. We found myself developing a recursive approach to solving each board, which was fun to refine as we moved on to the next level. There are, however, a handful of UI issues that could use work. Some may seem nitpicky, but these are the things that stood out to me: – The menu exclusively uses symbols to convey meaning, which were not always clear to us. We thought that the ? Would provide us with some help text, but instead it takes us back to the tutorial. We thought the star would let us save levels as "favorite" levels, but instead it takes us to the app store. (Perhaps if that were five overlapping stars in a box, it would be clearer that it means "leave us feedback.") Adding a second way of conveying the same information (labels, real help text, etc) would be helpful. We recognize that adding text adds a localization support requirement, but it would go a long way, in our opinion. – Loading the settings and main menus take a lot of time. The animation is cool, but we have to wait for the letters to fly into place and then the buttons, which adds 3-4 seconds every time we load each menu. Not a big deal, but it adds up. – Oh, man the colors. We have colorblindness, so while most game boards were passable, the "very hard" game boards were impossible to see. The "active" peice is almost the same color as the game board, so we can’t see it at all. The only way we know what peice is active is by looking at what moves are available to us. It would be helpful to at least provide an option to customize the colors because this is a usability issue. – When finished with one board, it goes back to the level selection menu. While simpler for the developer, it’s more frustrating for the user. The most common action at that point is to go to the next level, but doing that requires at least two clicks. That wouldn’t be so bad if the menu loaded instantaneously; but it doesn’t, so it feels sluggish and laborious to get to the next level. It really makes a difference when we finish the second to last level of a difficulty and then we dont remember if we did the last level or if its time to go to the next one. So, we may have accidentally skipped some levels, and there is no way for us to know for sure which ones we’ve already done. All in all, a very clean and pleasant app to work with, with a handful of rough edges to be ironed out.
Really like the look of it and its a fun chess alternative. The sound effects dont seem to be workin on it and the background music goes in and out. Would be nice if there was an option to ply actual chess on it as well.
Although a bit too easy. And why does it take us out to the level select screen after each level?!?! Please just have it move on the the next level after you beat one.
Most of them, even the supposedly hardest ones, have multiple solutions and can be easily solved with less than the moves allowed. (Imagine a mate-in-5 problem where it takes you a few seconds to find a mate in four.)
Im not particularly smart and we didnt really find even the very hard levels challenging at all. Would be a fun challenge for younger kids maybe.
Too easy, even for the very hard ones.
Nice concept with some fun brain teasers, but a bit too easy overall, even with the hardest difficulty. If you can beat stockfish level 1, you can beat this game easily. In addition, the animations seemed far too slow (it takes 4 seconds for you to restart a puzzle??) and a few of the colors were visually distracting. Overall not bad, just wouldnt pay money for it.
Its fine, but we were constantly waiting for it to get more difficult. We literally finished the game to make sure we could accurately report that it doesnt get hard enough to play to the end.
We bought this game thinking it would be kind of interesting. But sadly its not. Its just a boring strategy game with not a lot of levels.
We hope we are wrong. Or this incomplete game can only be rated 1 star.
Sending you back to the puzzle list each time kills the flow, especially on these fast, boring easy levels.
We love this game. We are a hobbyist chess player and seeing the rules of chess pieces applied in this way is super creative. We hope to see more puzzles in the future! :D Superb clean visual style on top of it too!
Anyone who loves chess must love this game. We wish that after you complete a level it takes you straight to the next level without the level select screen bouncing up and down, its a slightly jarring experience and reduces enjoyment.
We really enjoy the way that this game uses chess but isnt actually chess. The name of the game is honestly perfect. We will say Im stuck on 98.
There are no down sides. We just wanted to have a click bait title for our honest review. Lol. This game is exactly what its dev says it is. A puzzler using chess piece rules. It is Not Chess. We are a chess player and dont see why other chess players think it is Chess if the title literally says Not Chess and the description mentions it too. Anyhow, the dev fixed critical bugs with the game rather fast after seeing the bugged reviews. The game is a quick pick us up rounds with small brain teasers that we seem to be enjoying. The developer is still adding more stages which is fantastic. Recommend from us if you like puzzle games.
As everyone has said, levels are very easy. Even the newly added very hard ones. There are multiple solutions to many of the levels, but it will not let you solve it unless you find their solution, this is quite frustrating and should be fixed. Also we cannot pass the first level of easy because the game keeps freezing, so we only completed the other difficulty levels. All in all definitely not worth the price for the little amount of buggy content. Fix the bugs and add more levels or drop the price, it is a good idea with poor and rushed execution.
Youve set very good groundwork, the concept, the look, the mechanics, etc… But it requires waaaay more engagement. Whether thats more challenging levels, a speed requirement, point system, or in game rewards. Really great idea just very under developed.
Yes, the puzzles are a bit easy and there are not a lot of them – but this game just came out and we can already see the promise that an active dev will bring. If given the choice between taking the chess puzzles which exist and playing them over the board or in this app in this style we choose to play them here. This is a very strong start and the one thing which is holding this back – difficult content beyond level 75 – can be added by a good developer in short order. We highly recommend this game, both because of the look/feel but also because of the potential. Play some of their other games, youll see what we mean. Thanks for bringing us a chess game!
This is an amazing game. Some of the puzzles needed to be play tested, as many have unintended solutions. We found 5 completely different solutions to puzzle 40 with different piece captures including one in 4 moves (out of 5), highly inconsistent with the difficulty of the other medium puzzles. There should also be a way to proceed to the next level after completing the previous one, as the forced return to the menu feels clunky and is inconsistent with the mood of the game. We know a game with promise when we see one; this game has great potential and is already very enjoyable to play.
The game was fun, but we beat it fairly quickly.
Whimsical implementation of chess.
Puzzles are much too simple for anybody with a modicum of chess practice.
The puzzle game lacks a challenging experience, half or more of the hard levels were able to be completed within 30 to 45 seconds using 1 less move then was given. It is a very interesting twist on puzzle games and if there were more then 75 levels and more difficult levels we would recommend this game. The lack of music is very disappointing the trailer music would have added a relaxing tone and a sound when taking pieces would have greatly added to the experience.
Great concept, was excited for it after pre purchasing it. Difficulty seems irrelevant unfortunately, games are very easy and straight forward . Will keep it around to see if updates come with creative and difficult puzzles.
Game is too easy and still needs work. We spent 10 mins and completed the whole game. Even though we changed a setting and it restarted our progress. We dont make much money so this game was really a ripofff it should be free and have ads. We even beat almost all levels with an extra move its basically mindless but we still had a little fun. Will update on new harder mode said to be released soon.
We would like to support independent developers, and it no doubt takes a lot of effort to create something original. While the game may not be Chess, the pieces look and move as they do in Chess. Only difference we can see is that there is no opponent, so individual play works, you only have a few pieces, and you seek to land on a square containing the coin. Im not a great Chess player, and even on easy levels sorry to say, Id get stumped after unsuccessfully trying numerous possibilities. The frustration of not landing on the coin outweighed the satisfaction of solving it for us. We suppose thats what a challenge is about. Perhaps if there were hints, or a solution revealed, we might learn to like it better.
Completed the whole pack within 30 min of buying. We could think of worse ways of spending a couple of $$ but with so little and easy content this should probably be a free game (max moves needed was 5 in any challenge). Youre better off playing free chess scenario challenges – we cant stress how easily these are completed. Oh well.