# Checkmate! — user reviews > 95 indexed App Store user reviews of Checkmate! by BorderLeap, LLC, rated 3.64/5 from 223 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/checkmate/id1143204905/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/checkmate/id1143204905.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 116 · 4★ 25 · 3★ 18 · 2★ 14 · 1★ 50 ## What do users think of Checkmate!? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Easy to use - 💡 Convenient way to play chess with friends - 🚀 Simple and straightforward gameplay - 🎨 Great interface design **Cons** - 🐛 Occasional bugs and glitches - 🔍 Difficulty finding/deleting the app - ⚠️ Lack of key chess features (castling, pawn promotion, draw detection) - 🔄 Automatic move sending without confirmation **Commonly reported bugs** - Rooks/pieces disappearing or reappearing unexpectedly - Issues with board orientation and piece movement - Crashes and freezes during gameplay **Most requested features** - Add option to choose pawn promotion piece - Implement castling and en passant moves - Provide a resign/draw option - Add board rotation and move history features - Improve multi-device sync and continuity ## Newest reviews (16 of 95) ### 3/5 — Needs confirmation and resign! *2022-09-21* Occasionally I'll blunder because I accidentally barely touched the screen while calculating moves. Very frustrating. Also, the ability to resign is fundamental to chess... It gets the job done but only just. ### 4/5 — Great but a little buggy *2022-09-14, version 1.4* App is very simplistic which is great. I do notice iMessage crashing, lagging, or the chess board disappearing in chat sometimes but doesn’t effect the actually gameplay. ### 4/5 — Great App *2022-05-09* This is a great way to play chess with friends and family whilst not being pestered with ‘in app purchases’ . I have come across a bug , in which my Queen changed to a Rook unexpectedly. I would like to report this to the Production team! ### 3/5 — How do you rotate board so black is at bottom? *2022-03-04* Complaint made is that when playing black the pieces are upside down the black player has to view the board from the white players perspective how can board be rotated? ### 3/5 — Great when it works. *2021-06-14, version 1.4* There is a bug that will move your pawn 3 spaces for some reason, it’s happening often on opening moves. When this works it’s great, when it doesn’t you are playing against your opponent and the big, lol! ### 3/5 — Loved until *2021-01-30, version 1.4* I loved the app until suddenly while playing the app would start making moves for both sides without human interaction by me or my son. Apparent the App was hacked either by a person or autoplay computer app and would continue to make moves and remove pieces on its own. I uninstalled and reinstalled with the same result. We would make a few initial moves, then the app would start making it’s own moves. We checked both phones with security software and could find no breaches. The only recourse was to remove the app permanently rather than allow 3rd party control. Too bad, it was a good way to interact with my son from a distance. I can only conclude a malicious actor exploited some feature that allowed access. ### 3/5 — Queen switched to rook no reason *2021-01-21, version 1.4* So far it was good but we had one time where the queen actually switched to a rook for no apparent reason. Queen was sitting in the top right corner. I was trying to get ahold of developer but can’t find their contact info. Please help ### 4/5 — Confirm your Move feature *2020-11-24, version 1.4* A well designed app, no issues except that it could use a confirm your Move feature! ### 3/5 — Take back a move *2020-11-20, version 1.4* It would be nice if you could take back a accidental move. Also there seems to be a glitch with the rooks suddenly disappearing from the corners. Other than that I love it. Oh, and a Halloween themed board would be groovy! ### 3/5 — Good app but where did that move confirmation screen go? *2018-09-29, version 1.4* It’s a good chess iMessage app but the latest update removed the confirmation screen before sending a move. Really makes it easy to accidentally tap the screen and boom the move is gone. At least give us the option, this isn’t speed test. Also iPad landscape is broken 🙄 ### 4/5 — Well-done correspondence chess app! *2018-09-22, version 1.4* The app does a great job of doing exactly what it needs to and nothing more. Lots of apps try to be too fancy, have too many burdensome features that clutter the UI, or find some other way to stray from the main goal. This allows you to play a nice game of correspondence-style chess with a move history and a clean representation of the current board. Well worth it. The only reason I'm not rating 5 stars is because in my experience it doesn't handle multiple devices very well. If you start a game on your phone and move to your iPad, for example, iMessage has brought the game and the move history over with the rest of your messages but trying to make a move will give you a prompt to start a new game. Maybe this is just a bug and it’s supposed to sync. I'd even be okay if they clearly handled the circumstance and just informed you that you have to continue on the original device. Of course, getting state sync to other devices would be even better! Also others have mentioned that being able to preview the move before auto-sending would improve the experience — I agree. ### 3/5 — At first great... *2018-03-12, version 1.4* I initially downloaded this app and really enjoyed it. Very simple and easy to use, as well as having a wonderful looking interface.....but I recently updated the app and was very disappointed to see that I can no longer preview my move because it automatically sends it to my opponent.(it could just be me, but it seems as though it doesn’t run as smoothly with the new auto-send system) If the method of sending your move could go back to the way it previously was, I would say a perfect 5 stars again. ### 3/5 — New update *2018-03-08* New update has ruined the function. Can you please fix this because the game is usually brilliant bar a glitch with rooks very occasionally. ### 4/5 — One big issue! *2017-09-09, version 1.3.2* Right now I just found out that you cannot move your bishop from a1 to h8! This is a huge bug and needs to be fixed. Great game though... So a couple of moves later my rook, that was taken by my opponents knight, just reappeared. This is probably why it wouldn't let me move there. The rook functions properly, but should not be there. On my opponents side of the board it shows that they have taken a rook, but I now have both of mine on the board. Not sure how this glitch happened, but please fix this. Thank goodness it's not a competitive match ### 2/5 — Deleting The App *2017-08-28* To delete the app, go on iMessage and find where the stickers are. Hold down on the icon and press the 'x' button. It should be deleted. ### 3/5 — Would be an easy 5 stars if.. *2017-08-24, version 1.3.2* I wish the app wouldn't generate a text message and flip the board immediately after I move a piece. I want the ability to view the board in full screen after I move a piece before I finalize my decision. I also want the ability to flip back through each move in the game while I am playing and after the game is over. If these features were added this would be one of my favorite apps. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Doesn’t always work *2019-10-31* This game works intermittently, there is no option to send the, better free options, will be requesting refund ### 1/5 — Not good *2019-09-01* Not good and not recommend. There is an error which you cannot win against your friends. I caught Rook with Bishop, but when I moved Bishop the Rook was still alvive and the Rook could move and caught my Queen. ### 1/5 — Bad one *2019-08-16* Not even 1 star ... I just bought it on recommendation of a friend n nothing working on it .. can I get refund please ??? ### 1/5 — Not compatible with latest update to iOS *2019-01-30* Unfortunately, this app must only work on previous versions of iOS. It certainly doesn’t work on iOS 12. ### 1/5 — Does not work at all *2017-08-11* Waste of time **Developer response:** Hi, did you play the game? Did you read the app description? This is an iMessage app and must be played within iMessage. ### 1/5 — Disaster. *2017-08-06* Is this a joke!? ### 2/5 — Buggy *2019-05-11, version 1.4* This app has been buggy for me. With two people I’m trying to play with, I make a move, but it doesn’t send. It’s very frustrating. Only able to play with one person right now (and it was buggy in the beginning too, but somehow was able to start a game). I like the concept, but the programming just isn’t working right ### 2/5 — Buggy after four games *2018-10-08, version 1.4* Nice interface, convenient play, but it got pretty buggy after about the fourth game. My friend couldn’t move his pieces, or he could only move mine. Then there was the time his rook reappeared in its original location after I had captured it. ### 2/5 — Doesn’t work *2018-08-07* This worked for one game after it would not turn on and made it impossible to play again do not download ### 2/5 — won’t flip board *2018-05-17, version 1.4* I have an iPhone 7, up to date, tried everything, restarted phone, restarted games ect, and the board stays upside. The first move it plays from my POV and then the rest of the game the board is upside down. It was only a dollar, but free chess apps actually work so this was annoying af. good idea, but not enjoying this game ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Easy to use *2021-01-26* Works great on iMessage ### 5/5 — Love this app!! *2020-07-09, version 1.4* Really enjoying this app with friends! Make more colors available ! Also , for the developer , I’m having some type of glitch while playing, it keeps showing a piece even though it got removed from the board, any ideas what’s going on? ### 5/5 — 100% satisfaction *2019-12-19, version 1.4* This is one of the most perfect games available on the App Store. Great price, plays better than the board game, and top notch graphics. It’s both easy to use and helpful to bring activity and thoughtfulness to those moments when you have nothing to say. Definitely a must own for anyone looking to bring the original game of thrones into their day to day life. ### 5/5 — Great app. *2018-08-25, version 1.4* I got this when it was free app of the week, but I definitely would have payed a dollar for it. I’ve had no problems with it for as long as I’ve had it, not really sure why there are bad reviews. ### 5/5 — Greet App... iPhone X tweaking needed. *2018-03-09, version 1.4* My son and I have have been playing consistently for over a year. He is 21 and has long since left the nest. We don’t always have a lot to say but a move on the board has become our “yo, thinking of you”. It goes something like this... Dad: Your move. Son: Ok, can I borrow some money? Dad: Let me take your queen first :) Son: Funny Dad. Just like $20. Dad: No, really. It would be nice be nice to support iPhone X. The board doesn’t fit exactly right. It works but is a wee bit wonky. UPDATE: Thanks for the iPhone X support and I love seeing the last move in the conversation. 5th star. **Developer response:** Love it!!! Thank you so much for sharing ;) Glad you're enjoying the new iPhone X support and the animated move in the conversation! ### 5/5 — Chess and Chat; a winning combination. *2017-08-23* All you need to add is a glass of scotch and you're set! PS I wasn't planning on reviewing this but there are so many one star reviews because people can't figure out something so simple which made reviewing it a necessity. Please ignore the silly people and enjoy this app. ### 5/5 — Great Game *2017-08-10* Hey! Fabulous game. All you people who don't read that's it's an iMessage game.... for shame! Your inattention to detail doesn't mean the app deserves one star. 5 stars from me :-) ### 5/5 — Easy and simple, but idk what to do. *2017-08-09, version 1.3.2* This iMessage app game is fun and probably easy to use, there is just one problem that I have with it. I don't know how to continue a game that I have started. Yes I am an iDiot. ### 5/5 — Ignore 1 Star Reviews, Seriously! It's great! *2017-08-09* I don't normally review games but when people are being idiots and don't understand what they are downloading, well I just need to do my part. Great game with friends, a refreshing take on a classic game. I'd like to see more games like this, like Checkers or Crokinole! ### 5/5 — Reading Comp is Important *2017-08-08, version 1.3.2* If anyone has ever doubted the importance of reading comprehension activities and tests in school, please just read the content of these low star reviews. 🙄 Great iMessage app, developers! 😎👍🏻 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*