Square Off - Chess App 4+

Good, but with a few major and obvious problems.

This whole thing is super cool, I love using my board and playing, all that. However there’s a few major obvious problems with the app.
1) the AI has no sense of time management. It is almost trivially easy to beat the hardest AI over and over in 5 minute games if you avoid blundering and play fast. I even had a game that ended like this. The AI has 11 seconds left. It plays a move that means mate in one is unavoidable next move. I play a random move accepting my fate. The AI spends 5 seconds, then moves its king instead of playing mate in one. Mate in one is still unavoidable next move. It uses its last 6 seconds and loses on time instead of playing mate in one. This was the level 16 AI and that should not be possible.
2) whenever you pause and quit a game and go back in to it later, both the AI and the players times get reset. Really? That’s kind of obvious of an oversight.

Other than that this is awesome though.

Developer Response ,

Sorry for the problem. We request you to kindly contact us via the In-app chat option so that we can check the error logs or you may write to us at hello@squareoffnow.com.

Okay App, Good Hardware, Great Potential

My son is in Chess Club so we got him this for Christmas and he LOVES it. The board is well made and the software works well enough that he can play the computer or other players online. However the app needs a lot of improvements to really earn 4 or 5 stars and reach the potential the makers promised. First, the challenge system needs to be more robust. Right now it’s hit or miss if you can get someone to accept a challenge and often a challenge notice comes up but when you open the app the challenge is not shown as active, even if the message just came in. The ability to teach or learn in computer only mode is vital and missing. Even just the ability to take back a move against the CPU would help. Also the ability to stream games (which is highly promoted in the company’s site and ads) does not work with the board. Streaming only works with the app which is not what is implied/promised in every video. Watching streaming on the BOARD is a must that must be solved. Other improvements like stats and friend only leaderboards would greatly enhance the player experience. Hopefully updates are coming soon. All in all, this is a great way for my son to play Chess when other opponents are not around, and the potential is very high if software improvements continue.

Developer Response ,

Hi, Thank you for your Feedback. We would like to inform you that our App development team is working hard to introduce most of the above feautres in our future updates. You can analyze the game you last played on the board currently. Also, you may log in to chess.com to play with worldwide players and also to keep a record of your games that you played on their platform. Our Grand Kingdom set users can live stream games on the board and we are testing the same on our Kingdom set as well. We wish to constantly stay in touch with our customers and so feel free to contact us anytime at contact@infivention.com to express your views/complaints.

Team, Square OFF

CRAZY ABOUT THIS

I just received my SWAP and had a couple of issues to start with. The issues were rectified, by the customer service team, in just a few hours. All of the instructions were clear and concise to get board recognized, connected and working completely. After the son-in-law (for whom this was purchased) saw it working (moving by itself), he was in thrilled about it, too. The kids all want the app on their devices so they can learn and play chess. They were hoping there really were Harry Potter chess pieces but settled for the “invisible player” movements. What also makes it so nice is that the lights help guide the player throughout the game. The different levels, game moves, challenges, tournaments, events, apps it can connect to and work with, people around the world you can challenge, or be challenged by, and countless other ways to play, makes this so unique. The app works flawlessly (so far-don’t prove me wrong) with the SWAP. Very easy to use the app with the board. The only suggestion for change is to make the phone stand a little higher so the phone can be charging while playing.