# Not Chess — user reviews > 93 indexed App Store user reviews of Not Chess by Tepes Ovidiu, rated 4.40/5 from 265 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/not-chess/id1535659343/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/not-chess/id1535659343.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 183 · 4★ 48 · 3★ 14 · 2★ 9 · 1★ 11 ## What do users think of Not Chess? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Enjoyable puzzles - 🚀 Unique twist on chess - 💡 Helpful for learning chess basics - 🎨 Pleasant visuals and animations **Cons** - 🐛 Occasional glitches and bugs - 🔍 Lack of difficulty progression - 🕹️ Clunky navigation between levels - 🎨 Difficulty distinguishing pieces on some levels **Commonly reported bugs** - Levels freezing or becoming unsolvable - Inconsistent difficulty across levels - Pieces not functioning correctly in some puzzles **Most requested features** - More levels and increased difficulty - Option to customize colors and accessibility settings - Auto-advance to next level after completion - User-generated puzzles or challenges - Scoring system and achievements ## Newest reviews (16 of 93) ### 3/5 — guides *2026-05-14, version 1.5* i have show guides selected but the guides keep turning off every time i move to a level or even during the game ### 4/5 — Cool Idea *2025-04-17* Way too easy if you know some chess rules. Community made Levels would be great **Developer response:** Thank you for your review and for the suggestion! I’ll consider adding this feature in an upcoming update 🙌 ### 4/5 — Love it *2024-10-20* Was a bit hesitant at first cause i’m not good at chess but i enjoy it a lot! Just can be a bit glitchy, after hitting button to go to next level it just sits there for 15-30 seconds, and sometimes the highlighted squares of where you can go aren’t there, but if you refresh it fixes it. Other then those i really like this game :) ### 4/5 — Good looking but no challenge *2023-01-05* 4 stars if free, 3 otherwise. Great idea, pretty, but no challenge and the fun vanishes quickly. Some very hard levels are easier than medium ones. Looks like it was finished in a hurry. More attention on level design would have been beneficial. ### 4/5 — Fun idea for a game *2022-06-10* Although a bit too easy. And why does it take me out to the level select screen after each level?!?! Please just have it move on the the next level after you beat one. ### 4/5 — Novel and quaint, but not challenging enough *2022-05-03, version 1.41* Novel idea and an enjoyable little puzzle game. The sound effects and colours are cute, and the graphics are clean. Music became a tad repetitive, would've liked an option to mute the music only. The difficulty categories didn't seem to mean much; easy was a tutorial, then beyond that all the levels were similar to moderate difficulty. It's a nice game, but it feels more like a teaser for a full version (which I would still very much play). ### 3/5 — Good concept, seems a bit too easy *2022-04-12* Nice concept with some fun brain teasers, but a bit too easy overall, even with the hardest difficulty. If you can beat stockfish level 1, you can beat this game easily. In addition, the animations seemed far too slow (it takes 4 seconds for you to restart a puzzle??) and a few of the colors were visually distracting. Overall not bad, just wouldn’t pay money for it ### 4/5 — Good idea, but the levels could be better *2022-04-08* The puzzle idea is great and i think it may help people who has little knowledge regards chess familiarize how each piece moves. However, the difficulty level is not progressing as it states in game, and overall not challenging enough. Like the graphic and music, but imo some background colors are too bright, more contrast between the pieces and the background maybe easier for audience eyes. ### 5/5 — quick review *2022-04-04, version 1.41* its not chess, but definitely cooler than chesss. ### 4/5 — Great idea. Wish the puzzles were harder. *2022-04-03* Most of them, even the supposedly hardest ones, have multiple solutions and can be easily solved with less than the moves allowed. (Imagine a mate-in-5 problem where it takes you a few seconds to find a mate in four.) ### 4/5 — Not really “hard” *2022-04-03, version 1.41* As title said, the “very hard” levels are not as hard as some of the levels from lower difficulty. ### 4/5 — Good concept *2022-04-03, version 1.41* Pretty fun game. Not enough levels and maybe too easy. When you can do the last level (hardest?) in 3 moves but you can do 5 moves. ### 4/5 — Nice little puzzle app *2022-04-02, version 1.41* I’m not a puzzle junkie but I was still able to solve all 100 levels in less than one day. I did not find that they became appreciatively harder as I progressed. One needs to be aware and of how chess pieces move. ### 4/5 — Great, But Short and Easy *2022-04-02* Loved this one. Wish there were more levels for sure, but did find the difficulty never ramped up either. Even into the last set of levels many times the board is filled up but I found solutions involving 2-3 less moves than allowed. Sometimes these didn’t even require me changing pieces. Not sure if that was by design (confuse player with lots of pieces on board and more moves that necessary) but I never hit something I felt was a large challenge on my play through. But I overall enjoyed every moment of this one, and you can wipe progress and restart so I will likely hang on to it and do so at some point in the future. Definitely worth checking out though! ### 5/5 — Very much like Solo Chess *2022-04-02, version 1.41* I beat all 100 levels in maybe 6 minutes max for every 10 levels. I started with Very Hard which was super easy but I really do play chess everyday for the last three years. Some thought is needed though if you play Chess.com’s solo chess or puzzles those are much harder and would recommend that if you want a challenge over this game. ### 4/5 — Pleasant mental distraction with a few UI Issues *2022-04-02* It's a simple game that is perhaps too easy at times, but I still enjoy the mild mental distraction. I found myself developing a recursive approach to solving each board, which was fun to refine as I moved on to the next level. There are, however, a handful of UI issues that could use work. Some may seem nitpicky, but these are the things that stood out to me: - The menu exclusively uses symbols to convey meaning, which were not always clear to me. I thought that the ? would provide me with some help text, but instead it takes me back to the tutorial. I thought the star would let me save levels as "favorite" levels, but instead it takes me to the app store. (Perhaps if that were five overlapping stars in a box, it would be clearer that it means "leave me feedback.") Adding a second way of conveying the same information (labels, real help text, etc) would be helpful. I recognize that adding text adds a localization support requirement, but it would go a long way, in my opinion. - Loading the settings and main menus take a lot of time. The animation is cool, but I have to wait for the letters to fly into place and then the buttons, which adds 3-4 seconds every time I load each menu. Not a big deal, but it adds up. - Oh, man the colors. I have colorblindness, so while most game boards were passable, the "very hard" game boards were impossible to see. The "active" peice is almost the same color as the game board, so I can't see it at all. The only way I know what peice is active is by looking at what moves are available to me. It would be helpful to at least provide an option to customize the colors because this is a usability issue. - When finished with one board, it goes back to the level selection menu. While simpler for the developer, it's more frustrating for the user. The most common action at that point is to go to the next level, but doing that requires at least two clicks. That wouldn't be so bad if the menu loaded instantaneously; but it doesn't, so it feels sluggish and laborious to get to the next level. It really makes a difference when I finish the second to last level of a difficulty and then I don’t remember if I did the last level or if it’s time to go to the next one. So, I may have accidentally skipped some levels, and there is no way for me to know for sure which ones I’ve already done. All in all, a very clean and pleasant app to work with, with a handful of rough edges to be ironed out. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — lvl 87 unsolvable *2022-10-26, version 1.41* I hope I am wrong. Or this incomplete game can only be rated 1 star. ### 1/5 — Developers need to add auto move to next puzzle *2022-06-29, version 1.41* Sending you back to the puzzle list each time kills the flow, especially on these fast, boring easy levels ### 1/5 — Boring *2021-07-05, version 1.41* I bought this game thinking it would be kind of interesting. But sadly it’s not. It’s just a boring strategy game with not a lot of levels. ### 1/5 — Not for Chess Players *2020-12-29, version 1.1* Completed the whole pack within 30 min of buying. I could think of worse ways of spending a couple of $$ but with so little and easy content this should probably be a free game (max moves needed was 5 in any challenge). You’re better off playing free chess scenario challenges - I can’t stress how easily these are completed. Oh well. ### 2/5 — Great idea, not executed well *2023-03-06, version 1.41* It’s fine, but I was constantly waiting for it to get more difficult. I literally finished the game to make sure I could accurately report that it doesn’t get hard enough to play to the end. ### 2/5 — Why no album orientation? *2022-04-05, version 1.41* Nice game, but no album orientation :( Why only portrait? ### 2/5 — Bad animation *2022-03-31, version 1.41* Redundant animation when go back just for setting or something else ### 2/5 — Great idea! *2022-03-31, version 1.41* But very dumb navigation between levels that makes it very hard to enjoy playing ### 2/5 — Легко очень. *2022-03-30, version 1.41* Слишком просто. ### 2/5 — Sympa mais trop court *2021-01-20* Jeu sympa, mais trop facile et trop peu de contenu pour un jeu payant. Terminé en 1h. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Terrific *2026-05-06, version 1.5* Wonderful zen like game. Puzzles are great! ### 5/5 — Chess fan *2025-05-17, version 1.5* I just casually play chess but this is a new and interesting type of puzzle that reinforces the basics and forces you to think out of the box. Love it! ### 5/5 — Super fun *2025-04-20, version 1.5* Enjoyable puzzles, totally worth trying this one out! ### 5/5 — Accessibility suggestions *2025-04-20, version 1.5* -Access settings without exiting game -Settings for 30fps 60fps 120fps -Bigger "next level" and "reset" button, if bottom right will be great -User generated puzzles? ### 5/5 — Decent Game! *2022-08-01, version 1.41* No ads, plenty of features, and unique game design. My only complaint is the inability to make custom levels. ### 5/5 — Fun, good for chess beginners *2022-04-29, version 1.41* Fun game. Levels are pretty simple if you’re a decent chess player and are familiar with piece movements. Good to relax after work. Hopefully devs will make more (tougher) levels in the future. ### 5/5 — Простая игра с шахматной механикой *2022-04-21, version 1.41* Nice game. But it would be cooler if you add some scores or achievements for beating a level with less turns or multiple times with different ways. Thank you, it's a clever and simple idea forva game. ### 5/5 — Love it *2022-04-20, version 1.41* I can’t get past level 87. I’ll get it eventually (I hope). ### 5/5 — Super fun game for those that like chess *2022-04-06, version 1.41* The game itself is a very inteteresting concept and is pretty fun. I hope they will add more levels in the future as the game is pretty short and not even the “very hard” levels are that difficult. ### 5/5 — Excellent with some suggestions for improvement *2022-04-04* This is really an excellent game and a lot of fun to solve these puzzles. I have never seen one like it before, and for that I applaud the developer for his creativity and the uniqueness of this game. If you know how to play chess already, then it should make it easier to play through these puzzles, but it certainly is not a requirement since the app shows you possible moves for each piece that you’re playing with. Here are a couple of suggestions that I think will make the game better: 1) A large number of puzzles in this game can be solved in fewer moves than you are allowed to make moves. This is okay for the easy and the medium level, however for hard and very hard levels the players should be given only the fewest number of moves possible to solve that puzzle in order to actually make it hard or very hard. Because of this I was able to go through the hundred puzzles in a relatively short period of time and wishing there were more puzzles to solve. 2) please keep adding puzzles regularly to keep the players interested to keep coming back. Thank you. --- *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 2026-08-18.*