Giveaway of the Day - Falco Chess

Today’s game is a simple chess game called Falco chess. There’s not much to say about chess (I think most community members will have at least tried to play the game once) except that if you like the game try this one out and let us know what you think. There are loads of freeware chess games available and some that you can play online (see links below for a selection).

Falco Chess has a toolbar that enables you to configure the board, changing it’s style from 2D to two different 3D views called simple and rich as well as rotate the board from white to black, plus there are other changes you can configure.

You can set the game up for two players which then unlocks the online links that you will find in the actions menu. I tried connecting to the Falco server several times but could never get it to connect. You can set up your own apparently, but to play someone else you need to send them your i.p. address. Once playing online there’s a chat facility, but I wasn’t able to test whether this worked.

Unfortunately I’m not a chess aficionado, so can’t comment about the game itself. I can play the game, but have never been a chess fanatic and haven’t played against a human opponent since the early 90’s (I lost several times, lol), nor can’t I comment on the three different levels of difficulty that the game corresponds to in the real world of chess, i.e. Does the difficult setting equate to a Grand Master, or just someone who plays a decent game (or at club level)? I’m hoping there are a few chess experts out there in cyber space who will be able to comment upon this.

I did try several moves to check on the AI and thought that it was quite reasonable; for example, I put a white pawn in a position for the black bishop to take me, however if it had taken my pawn, my white knight would have then taken the bishop. Instead the bishop retreated.

Strong>Music:

The music is some piano piece that is quite pleasant, though there’s little variation and becomes a little annoying after a while. You can change this by going into the sounds folder and changing the Midi file called Sonata_AI, though you will have to convert whtever music you choose into a MIDI file and rename it to Sonata_AI

following is the information given via Falco’s web pages:

Falco Chess is 3D OpenGL game.

Features

1. 3 Levels of smart engine power.
2. Playing via Internet or local Network.
3. Amazing 3D OpenGL Graphics and Animation.
4. Music and Sound effects.
5. Undo/Redo.
6. Save/Load.
7. Ability to play through game server.
8. 2D Mode is available also.

Question: How to connect to Game Chess Server?
Answer:

1. Select 2 Players mode: Settings menu->2 Players.
2. Actions menu-> Connect to Chess Server …
3. Enter the name, Select IP, use any port like 1234, 4321, 1232, 1323. Press Start Button!
4. Wait when the game server selects an opponent for you.
5. Enjoy!

Reference: http://falcogames.com/FalcoChess.php accessed 10th July 09

Images:

All on one page:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Falco%20Chess/?albumview=grid

As a slideshow:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Falco%20Chess/?albumview=slideshow

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Alternatives:

Pawn – ideal for beginners

http://pawn.sitesled.com/

http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/

the following is to a link I posted over a year ago when Easy Chess was given away. You’ll find several links to other freeware chess games such as Simple Chess, Tom Starkes Pawn (maybe the same game as the one I’ve linked to above) and Real Chess:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2672#post-18312

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