ChessKids

Reviewed by Sharon Mehl
Published by JS Ventures, LLC

Age Group: Age 4 to 8, Age 8 and Up
Type: Thinking Games, Board and Card Games
Price: $15

Requires: Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME

Description:

ChessKids is an interactive chess game in which children can learn how to play chess, learn new strategies, and just have fun! The game features animated characters, a variety of backgrounds and music, along with game play help and hints.

Features:

  • Fun kids representing playing pieces
  • Help Scripts
  • 1 or 2 Player option
  • 3 Levels of difficulty
  • Music and voice on/off
  • 4 Background scenes
  • Move assistance (square highlighting)
  • Strategy assistance

Technical Aspects:

The program installs completely on your hard drive and does not need the CD-ROM in the drive to play. Animation was smooth, speech is clear, and game runs great.

This program is not designed for people with auditory difficulty as the Help Scripts and the individual playing pieces that tell what piece they represent are all presented in verbal form.

Report and Conclusions:

What a cute game! Some definite thought was put into the programming of this title. There is a question mark displayed on the screen for help, and when pressed, an "angel" flies out and gives you a recommendation on your best play. There is the option of turning on Square Highlighting. If you click on a character this feature will show you where you can move that character. The best feature of ChessKids is the Help Scripts that can teach you, in animated form, how certain pieces can move, and how certain strategies can be played such as En Passant, Pin, Fork, and Knight Corral. My 12-year-old son said that he has learned some new strategies that will definitely help him when he plays his friends on the physical board game.

I found the different pieces confusing at first because at a glance you can't tell which character is which, except the pawns (because of the quantity). If you right click on a character it will tell you what character it represents. Just as a note, even though you can choose different themes in this game, the actual chess board pieces do not change to match the theme. When the theme changes, the background surrounding the chess board will change and the music changes. All in all it's been a fun title to play.

I have one suggestion and that would be to include more than one game on the CD to add more variety and longevity of play to the software. I'd like to see them using the same features and adding backgammon, checkers, and maybe even Chinese checkers to their software. If your child has the urge to learn Chess then ChessKids may be just the right software to teach them how to play and enjoy learning at the same time. The Help Scripts can also help a child that knows how to play chess to learn new strategies.




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