[Macworld]

Post your comments for Chess Classics for iPhone here

[realperson12]

It appears that this company uses shills to pump up its rating on iTunes. Take a look at Caissa Chess for a list.

[Jim_Ratliff]

The board on Chess Classics is too small; it doesn't use enough of the screen's real estate for display of the most-crucial element: the board!
I prefer Caissa Chess. It's board is as large as possible, and it's much more quickly responsive. (Chess Classics takes a long time just to load.)

[deepgreene]

I'll second or third that... I've got both Classics and Caissa, and Caissa is better all around, particularly in terms of playability and keeping a record of your games.

[Kingdaddy]

Why don't the reviews of all software products show a picture of the software running on the iPhone? I'd like to see what it looks like when it's reviewed, without downloading it.

[bioffe]

Well. In case of this product, we saw reviews even before software was released to the general public.

Do you know that Gameloft released "placeholder" at the day of application store launch? The actual software became available only one week after. Dispite that fact, it managed to get into top 20 best selling games (WITHOUT SELLING A SINGLE COPY !!!). Mail me if you need solid evidence, I have screenshots supporting what I said above.

I personally found Classic Chess sluggish and unfriendly. This app is not native to Iphone platform, it was developed for ipods 5 and 5.5 generation. Gameloft ported it using some sort of virtual machine.Hense the size, Classic Chess weights 78.8 MB(!),Caissa Chess 1.8 MB and we bundle more graphics with our app.

They don't publish real screens because it was really sloppy job UI wise and not up IPhone crowd expectations. I must admit GameLoft has brilliant marketing department. I see swarms of good reviews and blogs worldwide. One day they managed to get 35 five star reviews on their Itunes storefron (they had total 70 in 5 weeks before). Gameloft trully redefined "Globalization" and "hostile marketing" for us little team of developers. Nevertheless, we actually do play and love chess and our product is much more robust and feature-rich.



Here is a real video for you Kingdaddy (native resolution, so it takes some time to load )

Video Caissa v.2.0.1

Video Cassa v2.1 (teaser, 2.1 to be released soon)

[Kingdaddy]

Thanks! I already have Caissa and enjoy playing it. I really like the Colossus Ebony & Ivory view of the chess pieces - makes them look 3d.

Your video does a good job of portraying Caissa and its benefits. It's an excellent choice.

[deepgreene]

Wow, thanks for that. If my eyes don't deceive me, you're adding announced openings. Sweet. That was the only thing Classic had that I wished was in Caissa. Is there (will there be) a way to move back and forward through a list of moves already played?

[bioffe]

Caissa knows about about 2775 standard openings. There are over 26000 chess puzzles & compositions sit in in a database on the server and can be pushed to the app. Classic Chess offers 10 (!!!). In Caissa user can load puzzles or entire games from the web or emails.

In 2.1.1 you can mail your game to a friend. Your friend can open your game, make a move, and mail you back. t is not real time game, but I find it even more convenient and forgiving for us (contemporary yuppies). In Caissa Chess editor you can create custom positions and analyze them, there is no such thing in Classic Chess. I can go in length what Caissa does that Classic Chess does not.

DeepGreene

I'll answer your question. You can navigate back, but not forward. Full pgn browser is deferred to 2.2 release. It will be implemented by October.



To Peter Cohen, Macworld

Would you be interested publishing Caissa Chess review, so America would have a chance to find out about organic iPhone software with no added sales preservatives and marketing hormones ?

Regards,

-B

[deepgreene]

Excellent news! Thanks much.

[Kingdaddy]

As a reader, I think we all would benefit if you took [~96398] up on the offer of publishing Caissa Chess review.

I for one would like to see it!

[osplo]

I fully agree with bioffe. Unfortunately I bought Gameloft's Classic Chess before I knew about Caissa. What a waste of money.

I bought Caissa as well, and I can't be happier. It is great. It has a strong engine. Snappy, easy to use. With Classic Chess you have to wait for everything and you cannot see the board as clear as in Caissa.

I just have a problem in a human-human game where white O-O-O was denied for no apparent reason. There were no check squares inbetween or any other thing (King and Rook were not moved). Strange. I saved the game and can send it to you if you want, maybe I am wrong. Otherwise no problems whatsoever.

Bottom line, don't waste your money on Gameloft's.

Where can I find all these puzzles for download?

Regards,

[bioffe]

Just to update you all. Caissa 2.1 is out once it will get through apple certification process. Peter has AdHoc version of Caissa 2.1 hopefully he will find time to share his thoughs with us.

!http://www.caissa.us/attachment/wiki/WikiStart/iphone3g.png?format=raw!

[osplo]

bioffe,

any news on the fix for the castle bug I mentioned earlier?

The more I play the more I find the bug. It is really annoying!

Otherwise the app is great.