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Chess Maniac Giveaway
$6.99
EXPIRED

Game Giveaway of the day — Chess Maniac

Chess Maniac will help to improve your chess skills and become a better tournament or casual player! An incredible level of detail and realistic chess figurines add to the gameplay experience.
$6.99 EXPIRED
User rating: 164 20 comments

Chess Maniac was available as a giveaway on April 5, 2014!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$5.00
free today
Immerse themselves in the world of riddles on the theme of huge insects.

Chess Maniac will help to improve your chess skills and become a better tournament or casual player! An incredible level of detail and realistic chess figurines add to the gameplay experience. With a sophisticated hint system that shows several possible moves to help you learn, Chess Mania is an enjoyable experience for any chess player.

Game Features:

  • Classic Chess game: Play White or Black modes
  • 5 different chess partners from young bot to Chess machine
  • Hints for novices
  • 3 Sets of 2D Chess pieces and 3 Sets of 3D Chess pieces
  • The ability to undo all moves
  • 42 Arcade Chess Puzzles

System Requirements:

Windows 98/ ME/ XP/ Vista/ 7

Publisher:

Xing Interactive

Homepage:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/chess-maniac/

File Size:

27.3 MB

Price:

$6.99

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Comments on Chess Maniac

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#20

I forgot: the peephole in place of a window is most annoying - as most others already mentioned.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#19

I can't see any significant differences in the levels of play. There's no possibility to save games (e.g. in PGN-format) nor can one set up positions. Maybe usable as a toy. I agree with 'M@rten' (comment #6) that Arena (playwitharena.com) is (many, many) notches above this one.

Get well soon, Whiterabbit!

Reply   |   Comment by Peter  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#18

My uninstall program cannot find this games ....how do I uninstall it?

..........................Moderator Comment.............

Most giveaways have no unnstaller. to uninstall go to where the game is installed and delete the program from there.

Reply   |   Comment by Unruly  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#17

Feel better WR. I'll pass on chess, especially a small display. Haven't played since I learned in high school to impress this dreamy guy then had to try to lose quickly because he took FOREVER to make his next move. Since that was almost 50 years ago I don't feel like relearning.

Wonder if anyone tried downloading it on an Android.

Reply   |   Comment by Lonni H  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#16

Too small to be useful on the average PC screen. For anyone seeking a fullscreen chess game, the old Chessmaster series is still around; I run Chessmaster 7000 in Vista with no problems.

Reply   |   Comment by jgf  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#15

I usa a 27" monitor at 2560x1440. I'm not going to chage my setting just to get one program big enough to see. This is like looking at a postage stamp.

Don'ty waste you time.

Reply   |   Comment by Bronze_Dragon  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#14

Feel better WhiteRabbit! I am not a chess player anymore - beginning stages of dementia take away such skills. But I am sending the link on by email and on FB to some who are.

As an aside comment ... I'd like to see added to both giveawayoftheday pages Up at the top - a link to pin them to pinterest and one to post to our FB walls!!! It would make sharing a tad easier!


...............................Moderator Comment........................

Thank you for your well wishes Laverne. sorry to here about the onset of dementia. I hope there are treatments to slow down the process? To be honest, (after working as a nurse for a time) dementia and althzemmers scare me silly.

Reply   |   Comment by Laverne Music  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#13

This app is for iOS and android. It is not a pc version. I believe GOTD has a specific site for phone apps. Not impressed. :(

Reply   |   Comment by RusD Wrench  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#12

Wow! I can't believe how small the chessboard is! This is not for the elderly, like me. You can't resize the board either. Shame.
Installed fine on Win 7 64 bit. Looks like it was meant for a smart phone.

Reply   |   Comment by Sarge  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#11

I'm not even a casual chess player, so can't comment on the difficulty of the game. What I can say is that it works on XPSP3, is self standing (by default installs to C:\Games\chess_lite which begs a question if it is somewhat limited - can't tell, it's called Chess Maniac inside that folder). It seems to include a MACOSX version in the unzipped folder, but I don't have anything to check if it runs on Macs. The small window cannot be enlarged - F11 doesn't work. In the menu we get to choose the color and difficulty level. The sound of the pieces being placed on the chessboard is just horrible. The graphics is so-so at best.
I have Grand Master Chess v2.5 from an earlier giveaway (I think) where the chessboard is bigger and graphics much better. A new version of that (3.0) seems to be available on MPC.

Reply   |   Comment by JoeJ  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#10

Installed & works just fine on Windows 7, 64-bit, Home Edition, Intel graphics card.

A pretty wimpy chess program..much better are available for free. The window needs to be resizable..can't stand small screens. Can hardly tell the difference between the pieces because the size is too small for my eyes. Color/board/piece options are okay for a free program. I would suggest that the people images be changed to something non-realistic..as in, not a specific gender or race.. i.e. aliens with weird colors? :-)

It functions just fine with no glitches at all. But not a keeper, pretty pitiful compared to what's out there for free.

~Dax

Reply   |   Comment by DelennDax7  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#9

I can´t use this to learn to play chess, because i cant understand the rules in english, because i am from germany and don´t speak english like my mother language. But thanks for this Giveaway, but i cant use it. Thanks a lot!

Reply   |   Comment by Jolly  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#8

to Allen - is not Chess Titans still available for free from M$?
I did not DL this, as I have trouble seeing anything small on the PC, and I do use Chess Titans to play chess regularly; but I have W7.
To whiterabbit - feel better.

Reply   |   Comment by promytius  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#7

I've just played against the second hardest level (hard) and thereafter the hardest level (robot) and they were surprisingly weak. I estimate level hard to be about 1000-1100 and robot about 1300-1400.

(If anyone is curious, I'm about 2000).

Reply   |   Comment by Roger  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#6

Arena is a free chess program that plays much much stronger. Solving the chess problems is a nice option (but you can find lots of chess problems for free on the internet).

Reply   |   Comment by M@rten  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#5

Installed without a problem at Win8 but be aware, that the game is about same size as a card deck, and it can't be resized. I really miss Microsoft's Chess game as one of the best out there. Thanks anyway, i'll keep it, 'till I find a full screen chess game.

Reply   |   Comment by Allan  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#4

That's a good game for us with Windows 8/8.1. Thanks a lot and hope, you'll get better soon, Whitrrabbit. Thanks a lot for being here though. Cheers from Denmark. Get back with a review.

Reply   |   Comment by Allan  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#3

I get an error:
Failed to initialize player
DirectX 9 GPU (shader model 2.0)is required.

Running XP sp3

I'm surprised that Win 98 is listed then.
None of my 98 machines have as good a graphics controller as my XP.

............................Moderator Comment.......................

Hi John, do you know what graphics card/chip you have? You can check by typing dxdiag in the search field. Open up the Direct X diagnostics panel and click on the display tab. You should be able to see what your graphics card/chip is. Go to the developers site (probably Nvidia or ATI/AMD) and check the cards specifications to see if it has shader model 2. Cards with shader model two will be at least 4 or 4 years old, so, if you have a new ish computer you're more likely to have shader model 3. Try updating direct X. That said, you can get better free chess software online.

Reply   |   Comment by John  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#2

............................Moderator comment.............................

I'll try and moderate throughout the day, but it won't be regular as I'm feeling rather ill.



If anyone bought The Elder Scrolls Online, let me know. Perhaps we can play as a team once we get to the appropriate levels. (You can't access certain features such a siege, pvp and other modes till you reach at least levels 10 to 15 - not sure which level exactly - I'm only level 8 at the moment.).

p.s.

I highly recommend buying the hard copy imperial edition. It's expensive (£89) but you get a beautiful art book bound in simulated leather, a large poster sized map of Tamriel and a 12 inch statue of a Daedric Prince as well as several exclusive in game extra's (imperial horse, access to strategy guide, pet mud crab, ability to convery armour to the imperial sytle etc). The game comes with a 30 day free play, then you have to pay a subscription. 1 month = £8.99, 3 months = £7.99 per month and 6 months = £6.99 per month. I went for the six months subscription. The first game I've ever paid subscriptions to. :)

After playing the beta I decided it was well worth buying. I wasn't intending to buy the hard copy, but the statue and art book persuaded me. There's at least 15 regions to explore each with its own distinct environment and races; with more area's to be released in the future. A new veterans area will be released soon, with access only available once you reach the top level of 50.

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#1

Too ill to write up a full review. Looks like this is an android game with the ability to install to both windows and Mac machines. On installing the game and opening it up you get a small screen approximately 200 x 400 in size.

A basic no frills chess game with the ability to turn the music off, change the board color (four choices) and select from several different chess piece styles. You can choose wether to start white or black, There's five difficulty levels labelled Easy, Medium,Advanced, Hard, Chess Robot. there's a move suggestion button for all levels and a back button, which allows you to take back as many moves as you wish. There's also a robot head that shakes its head if you make a poor move.

I'm not a chess player (just above beginner skills), so can't really comment on how well the game plays, would appreciate some feedback from a good chess player in the community.



chess



chess 2


chess 3



chess





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There's over a 100 games on sale over on Steam, with a free weekend for Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/113020/

To see all games on sale go to the store home page and select Specials to see all sale items.

There's a new Indie Royale bundle plus several other live bundles (Humble bundle, Indie Gala, Groupees, Bundle Stars and Flying bundles see the game discussion forums for details. Most of the bundles are posted in the following thread:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/100253/page/5?replies=149#post-251967

The latest IGS game is Subject 9 a survival game. Pay above the average (stands at $1.62 at the time of writing) you'll get the sound track.

https://indiegamestand.com/deal/

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  10 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
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