Zen Chess: Mate in One

Zen Chess: Mate in One
N/A
Metacritic
89
Steam
76.667
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$0.99
Release date
10 April 2018
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
89 (299 votes)

ZenChess: Mate in One is a minimalist chess puzzle game. Solve mate-in-one problems in a beautifully designed chess board.

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Zen Chess: Mate in One system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/8
  • Processor: 2 Ghz Dual Core
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Graphics card supporting DirectX 9.0c
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c
  • Storage: 100 MB available space
  • Sound Card: Any

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
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Semaphia
Semaphia

A decent little chess experience, but not without its flaws, with the biggest being that there's a few levels with multiple ways of getting the checkmate, but the game only ever accepts the answer in its system. There's also a few times where the game wasn't registering my inputs properly, & the lack of visual feedback certainly doesn't help with that.

Fairly solid otherwise, though! I've seen some people say there's a lot of repeated/overly similar scenarios in play, though I'd argue that getting a few core ideas drilled into your mind is more helpful than anything else.

Worth the $£€.

Dayashi
Dayashi

You'd think mate in one isn't so hard to find, but there's some pretty complicated board situations it turns out! Very good practice

M'⁧⁧Bonk
M'⁧⁧Bonk

If it had cloud saves it would be far better. Progress remains on the device.

Green Arrow
Green Arrow

"Zen Chess" It's a fantastic game, and I've finished it. The colour scheme was exciting, but the only drawback I found was that full-screen play was not possible. Has anyone got a solution to the full screen problem?

jim bob
jim bob

Great concept! A minimalist chess puzzle game for 1 dollar, or a bundle of the entire series for just around 3 dollars? You can't possibly see anything wrong with that.

The issues aren't initially apparent but the game is riddled with bugs. "phantom pieces" will plague your game board forcing you to restart, and sometimes when phantom pieces are available puzzles can become unsolvable until restart. Sometimes this has the opposite effect where you can actually move the phantom pieces and solve the puzzle by just capturing the black king.

For whatever reason the peaceful sounds and atmospheric, low-key background music plays louder than a jackhammer, with no built in slider to adjust volume (at least not that I could find). I get that minimalism is cool and all, but don't be so minimalist you leave out an options menu.

Another blaring issue is the difficulty spikes, As you get closer to the level 200 range, you'll find some puzzles to be frustratingly difficult. I was okay with the difficulty, because when there was no bugs preventing me from winning, it provided a nice challenge and was a refreshing change of pace from the previous levels all taking 4-5 seconds to solve.

How are harder levels an issue? Well, you see, after level ~200 (give or take 50 levels) the levels go back to being simple and boring. The complex knight mates and discovered mates are replaced by "just en passant xdddddd" and queen + bishop capture mates. It absolutely ruins this for me.

If these issues don't sound too horrible to you, consider picking up the game as it is a nice hour or so of gameplay for 99 cents. On sale, even better!

MELONcHOLY
MELONcHOLY

Not very challenging but easy way to pass the time.

Crazy4Puzzle
Crazy4Puzzle

Well done, it was 16 hours, not continuous, playing Zen Chess and testing my little knowledge in chess, finally concludes the 300 levels, let's go to Mate in Two!

Shake
Shake

Grandmaster champion Vladimir Kramnik lost to Deep Fritz on a mate in one. Therefore if you can beat this game you are better at chess than Kramnik, FACT.

Nurse Ratched
Nurse Ratched

Beautiful visuals and simplistic easy to use interface. Great puzzles for sharpening your skills in identifying mate threats and patterns, 300 different puzzles to keep your brain ticking over, great value for the price.

Minimol Games should really make a full playable chess game!

Bolinho
Bolinho

ATTENTION!
THIS IS A REVERSE REVIEW, WHICH MEANS IT WILL START FROM THE END TO THE BEGINING!

IF YOU LIKE CHESS, BUY THIS GAME! NOW!

FURTHERMORE, BUY ALL THE CHESS THEMED GAMES FROM MINIMOL STUDIOS!

I HAVE BEEN PLAYING THEIR GAMES AND THEY ARE ALL FREAKING AWESOME!

ZEN CHESS MATE IN ONE
ZEN CHESS MATE IN TWO
ZEN CHESS MATE IN THREE
ZEN CHESS MATE IN FOUR
ZEN CHESS CHAMPION'S MOVES
ZEN CHESS BLINDFOLD MASTERS
KNIGHT SWAP
UNLOCK THE KING
HANG THE KINGS

AS I SAID IF YOU ENJOY CHESS YOU SHOUD HAVE GOT ALL OF THEM ALREADY!!

AND IF YOU LIKE PUZZLE GAMES IN GENERAL ALSO TAKE A LOOK IN THEIR OTHER GAMES THAT ARE PRETTY COOL AS WELL!

FLATLAND V1
COLORGRID

THOSE GAMES HAVE SUPER POLISH STYLES WITH A MINIMALIST LOOK AND MUSICS/SOUNDTRACK THAT MATCH PERFECTLY WITH THEIR ENVIROMENT.
IT KEEPS YOU BOTH FOCUSED AND RELAXED, A PEACEFUL AND SELF-CONFIDENT EXPERIENCE PLUS THE FUN!

MAKE SURE TO CHECK THEM ALL!

Xas
Xas

Sophisticated Chess made simple.

300 Stages to ensure Check Mate.
Little lengthy but a breeze with a keen eye.
Easily solved just by spotting the odd piece to confirm the kill.

Low Priced for a quick perfect game.

Aqulota
Aqulota

Cute, but felt thrown together in an hour with no regard for player experience and a focus on quantity over quality. I did like 10 levels in a row with the exact same solution.

Moon
Moon

Graphics: 3/5

Gameplay: 4/5

Music: 3/5

Replayability & Longevity: 2/5

Quality & Experience: 4/5

Note about replayability, I have already let plenty of friends and family play through the game at their own pace. The game is alright for that but the longevity for yourself is little to none.

The game's an alright pickup for beginners looking to solve simple Mate in One chess puzzles but besides that, the game serves it's purpose and doesn't or have any reason to strive for more. Ambiance from the music is nice for a bit but can be simply muted to sub for you own. Pick up the bundle on sale.

Sinter.
Sinter.

There's not enough polish for a game this simple, compared to for example lichess

LunaticS0UL
LunaticS0UL

The puzzles themselves are solid, if a bit simple, but the interface is a mess. There's no indication of selected piece, pieces can be moved anywhere (inc. illegally), animations are slow. These puzzles on something like a fork of lichess would be incredible. I give it a thumbs up for the puzzles alone and haven't played the next games in the series yet.

Nek0mancer
Nek0mancer

Can only find two fonts for the pieces, both are annoying and non standard.

Savatage
Savatage

Very good to improve on the mate in pne patterns. Though they might not be common mates they can come in handy, and there are some basic ones that everybody should know at the start. Overall great for learning and just chilling after a hard day

KrigarNooben
KrigarNooben

All in all, first 250 boards are good. Last 50 boards are just to simple and feel like they are either leftovers or the original 50 first boards but was too easy even to be the first 50.

Lemes ED
Lemes ED

You get what you pay for: checkmate scenarios where you deduce the final move. Not much to it, you can figure it out logically or you can move pieces randomly until you stumble upon the answer. I spent a lot of time retrying a puzzle immediately after solving it, to see why no other solutions could work. It's very well-made, developers put a lot of thought into placement.

Fennec Fox
Fennec Fox

Good way to learn about chess without playing entire games. Simple concept but it works.

The Tofu Weeb
The Tofu Weeb

Recommended to me by a friend and I gotta say that this game is relaxing. If you like Chess puzzles then I do recommend getting this. I did power through and get this in mostly one sitting aside from getting takeout. Would I play again? Yeah, give it a month or so and there's replay value. There's little chance you're gonna memorize 300 puzzles after one play. I did notice that there were certain combos such as a bishop rook combo for mating. Recognizing combos and pattern recognition helps you develop your chess game so this is much an exercise as it is a way to just chill and relax. Would definitely recommend.

black
black

Decent chess puzzles. Music can be disturbing so you can just mute it. If you want to play free chess puzzles just go on lichess.org. It's late here and I saw this on sale so thought why not. I used to play competitively with a rating of 1800 just touching 1900 a few months back. Haha it's nice to just do some puzzles when there's nothing else to do and it can be quite relaxing no matter how good you are at chess.

Altogether a well rounded chess puzzle game. Although they should remove illegal moves, for example I can literally take my own king out which is on A4 and my knight which is on f8 XDD.

jeremydouglass
jeremydouglass

Quite relaxing. A collection of 300 puzzles that don't seem to be organized by difficulty in particular, although there are groups and there are occasional sequences of levels with variations on a theme, such as "using two bishops" or "knight revealed mate" -- which is interesting. The interface allows free movement of any white piece, so you can make impossible moves (which will be correctly rejected with the puzzle reset). If you move a pawn into the last rank there is a mechanism for choosing the promotion piece, but I don't believe that any of the puzzles actually required the choice of anything except a queen, which was a bit of a disappointment. For the most part Mate In One isn't really about exotic scenarios -- or about exotic solutions like en passant to mate, or castling to mate, or promoting a knight to mate et cetera. Instead it is mostly a collection of little puzzles from boards that look like mid-games and end-games.

CHESSFOREVER
CHESSFOREVER

For experienced players, mates "in one" aren't a huge challenge. But a collection of good ones, conveniently presented, is a tool that can be used repeatedly, even by such players, to drill and drive into mind a host of useful patterns. And skill at chess seems to depend, among other things, on pattern recognition.

It seems to me that this is a good collection of mates in one, conveniently presented. I am timing myself as I work through the collection, hoping to drive the time needed to complete a set number of its puzzles down lower and lower.

Inexpensive. Decent graphics. Good (if relatively simple) puzzles. Definite thumbs up for repeated practice. And I say this despite the fact that I am a very experienced club player, not a beginner. I don't regret in the slightest buying this set, or several of the other chess-related programs sold by the same folks. I'll review some of those, too, when I look them over in greater detail. I started with this one. I'm impressed so far.

Packert
Packert

Mates for beginners - Game is nice to have, though there are free and better resources: i.e lichess etc.

The biggest thing right now, is you dont know which piece you have touched, so if you accidentally click a piece, you won't know it.

Also, the UI is not the greatest, can barely see the icons, and you will often miss pieces due to the background being so overexposed..

I would add so the background doesnt match with the chess board, make the pieces highlighted once touched, have the music lower in the beginning, add tips, add feature to windowless border etc, add more pieces to choose from, and the biggest problem of them all:
Why would you make people buy and download 6 seperate games instead of just having it in 1 - This would be better for the product and consumer.. Imagine driving 20minutes to solve mates in 1 at a club, but that club ONLY does mate in 1's, so you drive to another one to solve mate in 2's, etcetcetc.

Prof.Vaharrak
Prof.Vaharrak

Prof.Vaharrak's Curator Group - Almost 30 years of gaming experience at your service

Pretty neat and chill puzzle game revolving around finding checkmate in 1 move, with 300 levels it's good practice for chess enthusiasts.

I haven't played in some years, but enjoyed it and didn't put it down until I finished it, finding a challenging situation every 50 or so levels, most are pretty straight-forward. Clocking around 3 hours, I'd recommend this to any chess fan looking for a little bit of puzzle fun out there.

Waspor
Waspor

Well, it set out to be a puzzle game themed around chess, and it succeeded at that. If you like chess and puzzles, then you'll probably get something out of this.

star1262
star1262

Great way to practice and learn

Noc
Noc

You gotta love the pawn checkmates.

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Anonymous
Anonymous

Very cool Chess Game !
I simply love this game, it's no distraction and make you think about the beginners of chess in a cool challenge.
Hide value for what I paid.

Rafão da Massa
Rafão da Massa

I loved this game. Chess challenges are always cool to solve, with very relaxing music in the background. It's a great hobby. The puzzles were well thought out and very cool to solve, I recommend.

Duncan
Duncan

A pleasant distraction. Easy to use.

Remi
Remi

absolute dog shit, hated it, cant do chess

Andi
Andi

Zen Chess: Mate in One is a strategy game where you play the white chess pieces and there is only one move you're allow to make... check mate. Simple to explain, much harder to master.

There is nothing to dislike about this game except I did notice on a few puzzles, there were at least two ways to obtain check mate but you have to make the move the game wants you to make or it won't work. I was a but frustrating but all in all, for 99 cents and 6 hours of play, it's well worth it.

archcorenth
archcorenth

I'm a player who is reasonably good at the mid game of Chess and (at least against other relatively unskilled players) can usually keep up an advantage in captures. But I've never been very good about pinning down the king at the end and things fall apart for me unless I have still have two rooks, or a rook and a queen. This program lets me practice just that end game, and so it's getting me better at seeing where a king can and cant' move and how different pieces besides the rooks can be used to check mate him. If something could be added perhaps after beating the levels they could be collected by what pieces were used in the check mate so I could look at one after the other and see just what made up the patterns.

Calvy
Calvy

I feel complete after finishing this game. Relaxing and occasionally challenging

James Bradford Huston
James Bradford…

the 1-player mode is engaging, relaxing interface

ಠ_ಠ
ಠ_ಠ

ಠ_ಠ A decent minimalist chess puzzler, but it has significant sticking points.

I picked up Zen Chess: Mate in One when its bundles went on sale. While I definitely got my 59 cents worth out of this game, I can't recommend picking it up for full price after going fully through the experience. If you're serious about learning, you're probably better with lichess.org.

You'll practice many of your chess skills to get through this game.
While some of the setups are obviously very contrived, ZenChess will force you to look at attacks from every angle. How can you best block the Black King's escape routes and check them at the same time? What pieces could be moved to block your check or take your attacking piece? What pieces are pinned and unable to move without exposing the king?

I found myself wishing the game explained why a solution wouldn't work.
These puzzles have one defined solution, but the reason for that may not be immediately obvious. A stronger implementation would be to show the player the counter-moves from Black that better demonstrate what they did wrong. While this would make for an easier game, it would be a stronger learning tool.

Difficulty takes a nose dive around Puzzle 225.
In the 100-200 range you're dealing with setups that require you to look at every single line of attack. This suddenly drops to very simple puzzles that make you scratch your head and wonder, "Why didn't they just put this at the start of the game?". Further review shows they added these puzzles as an update after launch, but didn't alter existing progression. Kind of lazy - a good update would simply migrate that data and slide these puzzles to the start.

Other Numerous smaller implementation problems:
ಠ_ಠ No volume control, only an on/off button for the VERY LOUD music.
ಠ_ಠ Only one music track that gets old after the first hour.
ಠ_ಠ No windowed Mode / fullscreen toggle, or borderless fullscreen mode.
ಠ_ಠ No piece highlighting. Selecting and de-selecting a piece intuitively obvious.
ಠ_ಠ You can literally move a piece anywhere on the board (and fail, naturally).
ಠ_ಠ The game's thirty achievements (1 every 10 puzzles) are a little excessive for such a minimalist game.

It really doesn't make sense why ZenChess is six separate titles rather than a single combined title.
Minimol basically copy-pasted the same design pattern and dropped in a different puzzle file for each game. It feels a little cheap, when they could simply add a submenu and maybe some DLC for content added later.

For more reviews like this one, follow the ಠ_ಠ Reviews Curator page.

kovoCode
kovoCode

Obviously helpful for training board vision and indirectly teaching skewers. The interface is functional. My only major issue is that puzzle difficulty seems haphazard at best.

I will say, I found myself saying "oh, that's a cute mate" quite often, so congrats to the developer for finding some fun, cheeky mates.

JoeCool
JoeCool

Watched Queen's Gambit. Wanted to be that cool. Looked for Chess games. Started here. At 270/300 right now. Closing in on 4 hours. I dig it. Learned some stuff. Lots of different layouts. Since I don't know anything about chess, I don't know how realistic these scenarios are to happen, but I think it was still a good experience for learning how to look at the board and where everything is and how it can move. Sometimes it's about moving to a square, sometimes about moving away from a square to unblock the path of another piece. You see how pieces work together.

My only complaint is there are clearly multiple solutions to some puzzles that the computer rejects because it is looking for something specific. I really didn't like this because when I'm trying to learn, rejecting viable solutions just makes me question myself.

ShunMaker
ShunMaker

O jogo é legal, bom para quem quer melhorar suas habilidades no xadrez.

Mas tem alguns contras:
Só tem temas claros para o background, o que é ruim para jogar à noite.
Não tem modo janela.
Achei a música bem enjoativa.
Não dá pra desativar só a música e ficar com os efeitos sonoros ligados.
Não salva progresso entre dispositivos.

Se você não se importar com essas coisas, é um ótimo jogo, recomendo.

Enthusiadam
Enthusiadam

Exactly what it sounds like it is. I'm almost through all 300 puzzles and I've gotten much faster at assessing the vulnerability of the king. I'm not a good chess player but I definitely feel like my endgames will be stronger for having done this.

It's well designed, doesn't use much battery and works well with a touch screen. No negatives to speak of, except that it can crash from time to time - although the crashes do not cause any problems or lost progress.

Lord Knightmarez
Lord Knightmarez

100s of puzzles, a smooth interface. simple, pure, zen. will absolutely help you level up your chess skills.

Karma
Karma

fun, short and good for when you're bored.

Lord Whoopi
Lord Whoopi

Very good, what it says on the tin.
Only complaint would be that there is no windowed mode.

sluicepoint
sluicepoint

Exactly as it seems. Definitely helps pass the time between calls faster -- great if you've got a work from home type job, and need something to keep minutes/seconds...

nogox
nogox

pro tip: pawns can move two spaces on their first go

Saltyy_
Saltyy_

Did about one puzzle every 17.44 seconds. Not amazing but i'm getting better :)

POGGERS

Solaren
Solaren

300 mate in one puzzles with relaxing background music. What's not to like?

Zoro
Zoro

I've been on a chess kick lately and I have to say I'm pretty bad, but this game was able to help me out and see more of the board at a time. The puzzles are just the right amount of hard and the game is nice and peaceful.

senshin
senshin

Easy chess puzzles, 300 levels, estimated play time for chess beginners: 6 hrs.
Very relaxing style. Gets me sleepy, when playing with audio - in a good way, after work, before bed time.

bradders - no mic
bradders - no mic

Brilliant Puzzle Game. I checked out this page as I wanted a break from chess.com puzzles and this looked like a calming game. As it is a mate-in-one game the difficulty of the puzzles is limited however for beginner players I can see why the puzzles could challenge them as they go along as they involve themes of under-promotion, mates with pinned pieces etc. There are lots of themes of checkmate which I joined, and will probably help me with pattern recognition, but you should buy this game for relaxing chess rather than drastic improvement. The aesthetic of the game is calming and "zen" hence the name. My only complaint is some of the puzzles got a fair bit harder up to level 230 then suddenly got really easy from 230-300 which was a shame. I can tell these puzzles were handpicked as some of them involved famous opening trap checkmates such as "Legal Mate" the queen sacrifice mate in 7. Overall really enjoyed, definitely worth the buy and looking forward to playing their mate in 2,3,4 and the more difficult blindfold and master moves games :)

The game took me about an hour to complete, or just over but the first few puzzles I wasn't trying to speed run. It's important however to consider I've got an intermediate online rating and chess.com puzzle rating of > 2000 so I reckon for your 79c you should get a good few hours if your new to chess (maybe 5 or so).

dpb1950
dpb1950

Great exercises to get your chess brain turned on!

Merrdem
Merrdem

"Zen Chess: Mate in One" is a chess game where you solve puzzles, which you can mate the opponent in a single move. For chess lovers like me, it's a great time killer.

Volute & Pixlet
Volute & Pixlet

The puzzles are very good, there is no difficulty increasing. Some are very easy.
Overall the game is a real pleasure. It takes few hours to beat.
On the cons side, I regret that the game doesn't explain you why a solution you're proposing is not working, or even limit the moves on the board to the legal ones. However this is really not a big deal and I totally recommand this game.

nickmao (^_−)−☆
nickmao (^_−)−☆

Steam chess is kinda weird, and this one is no exception.

It's the only chess board implementation where pieces can jump to any square on the board.
The only chess board where drag+drop doesn't work.

There are only 2 piece sets and the default one is complete garbage - pieces blend.

Piece which you about to move is not highlighted - which leads to you clicking on one piece, then you click another - and the move is done by the previously clicked piece (because see above, you can move wherever you want)

Board doesn't have rows-files drawn, which confuses in positions where little pawns are present (and you don't know whos turn it is).

No Steam Cloud so can't continue with progress on other PC/laptop

Anyhow, better go lichess/chess.com/chesstempo.com

Eagle Chris
Eagle Chris

I'm learning a lot about chess by just playing the last move over and over.

yukioro
yukioro

A nice basic chess game. Most of the 300 problems are very easy, so it is a good fit for people that want to learn chess, or improve their game. Only a handful of problems were really challenging, in the sense that some analysis was necessary. I found it functioned as a useful reminder for some important chess strategies. This quality alone makes this game not only useful but also entertaining. Any people with basic knowledge of chess can play and enjoy it. All people generally interested in puzzles will also find it interesting.

SHONTGIVEADIT
SHONTGIVEADIT

This one is a little easy for people who have played chess a bit, but for younger chess players, or people who are relatively new to the game, this is a great little purchase!

For someone who is a bit more experienced with Chess, you should probably jump to the mate in four and the Champion's moves games by the same developer. These would offer more of a challenge.

The only one I have yet to complete is the Blind Chess puzzles game - this one is certainly a challenge!

Recommended for beginning chess enthusiasts!

Spartakus
Spartakus

A good game for beginners. 9/10 (It's not a 10 only because it's possible to do impossible moves, so if you missclick once then it counts as an error.)

You can watch my full game playthrough here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-naHrw4sE&ab_channel=Spartakus

kostiskaroulas
kostiskaroulas

Great game. Nicely designed and if you are a chess addict definitely recommend it!

deusincaelo
deusincaelo

id give this a thumbs down if it wasnt so cheap, because there are some puzzles with multiple solutions and only the "intended" works. otherwise if you are a casual chess player go for it. most solutions are pretty easy, but the board states created are pretty neat an help seeing lines in actual games.

Jeanne d'Arc
Jeanne d'Arc

Very relaxing and enjoyable chess puzzles. My only criticism is that I'd like more variations on the chess piece designs. You only get two designs to choose from and neither are particularly great. That being said, the overall minimalistic design of the game is excellent.

SugarKhaine
SugarKhaine

I feel like there is room for improvement. There's very little feedback, it doesn't even highlight pieces when selected which was a little frustrating at first. This makes me think it was designed for a touch interface. It doesn't give any guidance such as tiles it can move to, or mention pins or forks (although arguably that contributes to minimalism and didacticity). Pieces can move illegally, which is funny but a little unusual. It takes a while to transition to new levels which can be a little frustrating for some of the easier stretches. That all out of the way, it did feel like it was improving my chess skill and is a nice and light puzzle. It's 300 levels long which is good value. Worth checking out.

const arch *
const arch *

The puzzles are a mixed bag. Many are good for what they are (they're mate in ones, so not particularly challenging, just good practice), but the board positions can be pretty absurd, and many times led me to thinking the board was flipped, because there aren't any board markers, nor any indication which direction pawns traveled. Yeah, it's always facing the same way, but that's not enough to not be confusing, in my opinion, given some board positions that have pawns and kings transposed to the other side of the board, etc. The actual UX of moving pieces is also incredibly outdated. Just go bust out puzzles on lichess.

Edible Jizz Doily
Edible Jizz Doily

Unfortunately, the game seemingly both lacks a windowed mode of any kind AND minimizes itself immediately upon tabbing out. Thus making it impossible to do anything else while studying the puzzles. For this reason I cannot recommend it and will be refunding without trying the puzzles. Use Lichess, chess.com, or chesstempo.com instead.

Golden Boy
Golden Boy

More puzzle than chess, in my opinion. Some levels seem almost impossible to replicate in a real game. And I could swear that more than one level has more than one correct solution, even though the game only accepts one. Nonetheless, it's a great game to teach your girlfriend some basic mechanics.

For those looking for 100%, I recommend playing in just one session. The solution to the puzzles after a while seems pretty obvious. Some even repeated.

For those looking for a game to relax, you can play this one casually too.

PseudoNymNZ
PseudoNymNZ

75/100 Fun but lacks depth.

The game comprises 300 mate-in-one puzzles that I got through in 2.9 hours. They are nicely chosen/well constructed puzzles that would be a fantastic learning aid for someone newer to the game who is keen to improve their skills, and are a fun set of puzzles for more experienced players. I enjoyed it.

A few suggestions for improvement:
-firstly the music is really jarring, a volume control would be a great addition (there is just a mute button).
-secondly as soon as you solve, it immediately jumps to the next puzzle. It would be nice if there were an option for a mode where each puzzle pauses after you solve, to reflect on the puzzle and solution, eg displaying the unsolved puzzle, with the chess notation for the move now added on the side (with eg ability to press space to go to next puzzle).
-I also think it would be great for beginners if there was an after the fact explanation of or commentary on key concepts contained in each puzzle, eg pin, exposing check, simultaneous check from two pieces, sacrifice, etc etc.

jamesferguson63
jamesferguson63

Some levels have more than one possible solution. The game will only accept one. This means that you will have to find said solution or be unable to advance. This is mildly annoying. Bar that, the game is pretty neat.

cloudysideup
cloudysideup

pretty chill and challenging, i enjoyed the game

Spyder
Spyder

It's exactly what you'd expect. A bunch of mate-in-one themed puzzles.

Few criticisms though (Which potential buyers should note, saying I reckon this is unlikely to be updated 4 years after its release):
- Could use separate sound effect / music toggles.
- I think this game is a great learning tool, but could be better for chess beginners by not allowing illegal moves, having move visualisation.
- The UX could use some better some feedback. For example, you can't see which unit you have selected.

usermame
usermame

good way to feel stupid cause all the other reviewers will be like "yeah it's decent but I beat all the 300 levels in 30 minutes while banging your mom simultaneously"

Mythical
Mythical

Love this series and have bought all of em :D
fun stuff

Suggestion:
Alternative dark mode for people with sensitive eyes
These bright pastel colors can be a bit much sometimes

Aozora
Aozora

Illegal moves are accepted. But there is no penalty, no points, no clocks, just relaxed solving. Problem are solved in numeric succession. Strong points here are the relaxing music and graphics.

unDead_Herbs
unDead_Herbs

An effective and gentile introduction to chess analysis. The minimal feedback is pleasant; however, as a predefined set of puzzles, the difficulty doesn't pace with the student. Excellent game Idea, has good potential for improvement/sequels.

gbors
gbors

OK, so this is really a chess game, not just a "chesslike". Mate in One consists of 300 puzzles, where White has to checkmate Black in the next move. It's a simple and well-done game, and some of the puzzles are quite good. However: it's impossible to create real challenge in a Mate in One puzzle, simply because there are so few variations. It took me 2.5 hours to walk through the 300 puzzles, which means 30 secs average per puzzle - including the ones where I spent a bit more time figuring out the move, the transitioning animation, and the game startup for the 10-15 sessions I had. in other words, around 1/3 of the puzzles needed any thinking at all.
It's good training, however - Minimol Games has you covered with Mate in Two, Three and Four games as well. Those, if well selected, can be quite interesting. In the meantime, Mate in One gets a thumbs up from me.

Aerobabe
Aerobabe

Genuinely enjoyed this game and found it super relaxing. I was glad the levels weren't super difficult to complete and I could just relax and think each one through.

Yuki
Yuki

Well, should you get it or not?

First of all, music and graphics nothing special.
The music is nice and soothing, though annoying after a while.

The riddles are... easy, but it depends.
My Elo is at 1000, still "strong" beginner level.
For me it was fairly easy.

Players with a few hundred below it might struggle,
players a few hundred above it should get it only for the quick achievement.

At 1000, you still can benefit from it, solving easy riddles in chess still trains you, not a waste of time.
But you should actually think, until you get the solution without a doubt!
Perfect might be between 500 and 800 in my wild guess.
Should it be too hard, don't get frustrated, try to solve easy riddles somewhere else first.
Try to play at a regular basis, until you get better. Then return.

I actually learned one new way of thinking about check mate.

binglybeats
binglybeats

This is a more advanced mate in one compared to others I've played.

Link
Link

Nice puzzle game, click the piece you want to move, then the winning square. Really simple.

Jim Schrute
Jim Schrute

Great for beginners to chess, not the hardest puzzles being they are 1 move puzzles, but they do their job!
took 6 hours to 100% complete.

For more of a challenge try Zen Chess: Mate in Two, or others in the franchise.

morgs
morgs

I thoroughly enjoy Chess, and, I wanted to find a game that would allow me to practice checkmating opponents without the need to go through an entire game just to wind up being disappointed with my own lack of skills or, far worse, this insidious attention deficit creeping up on me near the very end of a match from mental fatigue.
For my defence, I am after all, a newbie .

I acquired this game in hopes to practice and learn a thing or two on checkmating opponents, and, well, this game delivered.

The graphics are very pretty, the background color can be changed, which was greatly appreciated by yours truly.
I had a great time from start to finish. I learnt a lot and I recommend this to anyone who wishes to practice checkmating without explanations in a comfortable, calm and safe environment.

UNACO
UNACO

You will want to give this chess game a shot if you are busy 24/7...
Days / weeks / months fly by, work stress, family stress, COVID stress..
This game does relieve some of it, nice chill music, some levels actually require you to think about the chess rules and alternative options.
Played this for about 1 hour now and I intend to make it through all of the 300 levels. Perhaps one day Ill teach my toddler :).

Gral San Martín
Gral San Martín

(ES) Después de un par de niveles el problema es el mismo pero ubicado en otra parte del tablero.

(EN) After a couple of levels the problem is the same but located in another part of the board.

freneticclericgi
freneticclericgi

This was pretty easy, but hey, chess is for everyone right? Beginners might like it a lot. I found it enjoyable and I have been a rated USCF player.

We should all get better at finding mate in one anyway, so have fun!

SlayerEdition
SlayerEdition

It's okay at best, but It's chess; so take my recommendation. I found the part where you can click on a piece and move it everything lazy, like just code the possibilities of each bricks.
Well, the puzzles doesn't get solved by doing an illegal movie, but the brick still gets moved.

Ghost
Ghost

A cozy chess game for $1 (or $0.49 on sale) where you solve mate-in-one puzzles. There are 300 levels and 30 achievements (1 achievement for every 10 levels) with each level having one valid solution. The game is platinum rated on ProtonDB, and runs perfectly on Linux.

LEDG3ND
LEDG3ND

If you enjoy chess this is a nice puzzle game with a genuinely good amount of content for the price. I enjoyed my time with it and my only complaint is it could benefit from a dark mode, my retinas are on fire.