Zapp Chess User Reviews

Top reviews

Way over priced

Game has a good chess puzzle variant and worth checking out. But then after a week the most annoying commercials I’ve ever seen start. It takes on average 5 minutes of waiting before the cancel button finally appears, most times I just stop and restart app. And then the commercials come every 3-4 puzzles. OMG are they for real?! Obviously this is not sustainable. So you check out the price and the insanity gets worse! These developers think their one-off $4 app is worth $12.99 a month?!!??! Chess.com has like a million more content and is cheaper. I would pay $4 once a year for this. Come on developers, don’t be stupid and annoying. Game also looks vibe-coded by teenagers. What a waste of potential. They need a community and instead chase them away.
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Response from developer

Sorry about the bad experience, we completely understand your frustration. We are actively working with our ad partners to fix the long ad issues, it will be fixed within few days, till then we have also put a workaround now. We have also launched discounted annual plans as well as a cheaper lite plan to unlock game reviews. We would absolutely set further lower prices if we could. We request you to give us another shot. Please do share further feedback on hello@zappchess.com , we promise to address your concerns, it helps us be better. Thank you so much. 

Eyes Wide Open

Fantastic tool to work on not blundering. This app is basically a long version of a chess puzzle. You have to be quick though. It can be a bit stressful; however, your opponent has the same disadvantage as you. Love the app, will keep it on my home screen to play along with Lichess, Chess.com, and Pocket Chess!

Play me: Gheebuttersnaps
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Response from developer

Thanks for your feedback. It made our day :) Please spread the word about Zapp Chess with your friends!

Best chess game

I conducted a tournament in zapp chess it was easy to handle and best app for chess

Response from developer

Thank you so much! That's an interesting use case, please share any improvement suggestions or feedback you might have with us for tournaments. You can use in-app support or email on hello@zappchess.com . We will love to improve the experience further.

Ruined with in app purchases

Used to be a great app. They locked everything behind a paywall now unfortunately. I had an entire chess club using this app. We will no longer be using it.

Response from developer

So sorry to hear you are not having the ideal experience. We would like to understand more – which features being paywalled made you stop playing? We will try to come up with a solution. It would be great if you could write to us at hello@zappchess.com.

Fun concept

Honestly a fun and appealing concept. Ive had a few games where Ive been on wifi or otherwise had a stable connection with streaming videos/shows on other apps/websites but then I join this one and my moves wont go through and I end up losing a lot of time or just running out entirely. Not sure why it wont but it seems like it needs a much stronger connection than youd think.
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Response from developer

Thanks for sharing your feedback. So sorry to hear that you are facing these issues. Can you share more details with us at hello@zappchess.com? We will get into the details and try to solve it for you.

Fun game; subscription prices are outrageous

If you like practicing middle games and tactics against a live (?) player, this is a great app. I’m not convinced that there is a live player on the other end each time. But the subscription model is insane. $13/mo for no ads and game reviews. An insulting $30/month for a premium tier where the only additional benefit is a low stakes mode, and a streak freeze if you care enough about that. There are better apps that don’t cost anywhere near this much.
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Response from developer

Thanks for your feedback. We are working on introducing a lighter subscription model as well – hope it helps you. We would like to understand more about which feature in the subscription model made you consider it and also what makes you think there are no live players. Can you please email us at hello@zappchess.com? We would love to have a chat with you.

Quick Refreshment

If you want an instant refreshment from your daily hectic schedule then you MUST play this easy, user friendly, and quick mode chess game.

Response from developer

Thanks so much, that's exactly our intention – to make phone breaks productive. Please share how we can improve further, we would love to earn that 5th star from you.

Fun but Ads

Concept is super fun and unique, the issue is that this is a “subscribe for no ads” system. If you don’t pay up, after every single game you will see and ad for some other app (I keep getting polymarket) that is quite long, and then an ad for the premium subscription. Really annoying. The other downfall is that there is no pre-moving like most other chess sites. So if you’re low on time you’re out of luck.
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Response from developer

Thanks for your feedback. Sorry to hear about your experience. Running ads helps us pay our operational expenses. Your feedback on pre-move is taken, and we will work on that.

Won’t load

After playing for a few weeks it randomly stopped worked, it does the initial load screen but won’t load more than half way, aside from that great game that truly takes a different level of skill, problem solving and strategy

Response from developer

Really sorry for this. Please share your registered user details with us on hello@zappchess.com, we will solve asap

Addictive

This game is hard to put down.

Response from developer

Thanks for the feedback! Our goal is to make chess the world's default way to use free time

Badly Implemented

Unfortunately, your opponent can play badly and just take pieces to win. The developers try to make it sound like that’s not possible. But it is. You end up practicing bad chess.

Response from developer

Thanks for the feedback. Excited to know that you liked the concept. Can you please share more on why you are not liking the analysis? You can email us on hello@zappchess.com

Anti theory game

I’ve played several games where the outcome likely would have been different if the analysis considered longer-term strategic ideas rather than only immediate trades. Many strong chess plans involve preparatory moves like sacrifices to create opportunities for forks, skewers, pins, or other tactical motifs several moves later. Limiting evaluation to short-term consequences can overlook the creative and theoretical aspects of the game, where positional setup and long-range planning are often what determine the best move.
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Response from developer

Thanks for the feedback. Could you please share some such instances with us via in-app support or on hello@zappchess.com? We would love to understand this issue better and solve it. The game currently does consider forks, skewers, etc., even if they are several moves later, but we are probably missing your point.

Nice Start

The concept is interesting and fun. The analysis of games and moves is absolute garbage.

Frustratingly Unstable

You must play five times to play once… just unacceptably bad. More than once has timed me out of a checkmate when I played immediately. Can’t recommend.

As I play more, I encounter more imbalanced starting positions, sometimes gifting white an immediate free piece or putting black under immediate threat where one wrong move ends the game. Once I won with my first move and I don’t believe there was an effective counter; my lead was deemed stable after just two moves total. I wonder if there is even a rigor to creating the starting positions, or if they are generating them with AI.

I’ll finish my trial and then delete and I recommend you do the same. Too many negatives and annoyances despite the interesting premise.
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Response from developer

So sorry for your bad experience. Can you please share the problem cases with us on in-app support or hello@zappchess.com . We will look into it asap, it is most important to us that the starting positions are always fair.

Up dated review

I've been using the app since it came out three months ago. It has been very good up until about two or three weeks ago. Now the starting positions look like a five-year-old randomly set up pieces on the chess group. Even though the materials balanced one side has a complete advantage always. After reviewing the positions currently versus when the at first came out two 1400 level we're playing a position/puzzle that was maybe 500 points above them were things were somewhat confusing, but easier to navigate now the position is even though it's equal by stockfish the puzzles at a grand master level. That's great if you have time to figure out the position by this time control. The position should be no more than a 3 to 400 points higher than the people playing it. This is a serious flaw
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Response from developer

So sorry for your bad experience. Can you please share the problem cases with us on in-app support or hello@zappchess.com . We will look into it asap, it is most important to us that the starting positions are always fair.

Good game but bad ad placement

Love the idea of the game. The only issue is the timing of the ads. I understand as a free app to make money you have to have ads but putting them after the game but before the analysis makes me close the app every single time and not play a second game. I’m not sure where the ads should be but because of the current placement I’m playing 1/10th of the games I would be playing without the ad in the current place.
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Response from developer

Thanks a lot for the feedback. We will definitely consider your suggestion on ad placement. You could also consider subscribing to the premium plan – it gives an ad-free experience. If at all, you think a particular type of ad placement might be better, please do share with us!

Too many ads

Great game just too many ads like I ain’t buying any product

Response from developer

Thanks for your positive feedback. These ads enable us to keep paying our bills, hope you understand :)

Unplayable due to bad servers

The server response time was so bad my opponent lost on time after 5 moves, we both couldn’t get an immediate response from the server when playing moves.

Response from developer

Sorry for that, we had a technical failure. We have fixed it now, please try again

Great Chess Puzzle App

It’s not about winning so much as not getting behind…

Response from developer

Hi, really sorry about this. We work with only trusted partners like Google and Meta and actively block such ads, one might have slipped. We ran a full check again after your complaint to block such ads further. Please let us know from in-app support if you are still facing this.

Loveee

Just awesome ya know?

Response from developer

Thanks a lot. Glad that you liked Zapp Chess!