Square Worlds vs ChessLab
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Square Worlds
This elegant tile-placement game challenges players to strategically fill a 5x5 grid for maximum points. Manage your coins while discovering unique scoring mechanics for each tile type. Unlock additional game modes for a deeper experience.
- Tile placement mechanics
- Scoring system
- Coin management
- Unlockable game modes
- Achievements
- Hidden secrets
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Square Worlds combines boardgame and puzzle game elements into a simple tile placement game with hidden depth. You must optimally place tiles into a 5x5 grid to earn the most points, whilst keeping an eye on your coins! Each type of tile scores points in a different way, making for some rich and moreish gameplay. If you like the game, and once you know your way around the first game mode, there are two additional modes to unlock for a one-time purchase. There are no ads or consumables. Each game mode comes with several achievements and additional secrets to discover...
ChessLab
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Completely free, no ads, no account: nothing leaves your device. ChessLab is a complete chess companion for iPhone and iPad: play, analyse, train and experiment, with Stockfish built in, without ever leaving the app. OPPONENTS THAT PLAY LIKE HUMANS Nine characters played by Maia-3, a network trained on millions of human games: it does not look for the best move, it plays the one a human of that level would play, blunders included. Each has a style, a repertoire and a temperament, and a level set on the human scale. Or take on Stockfish, from beginner (~900 Elo) to maximum (~3190). Optional clock, hints, a warning before risky moves and an evaluation bar, all on demand. ANALYSE AND UNDERSTAND Every move is graded (inaccuracy, mistake, blunder, brilliant…), each player gets an accuracy score, and the app tells you why a move was bad. The Coach adds the share of players at your level who play it. At the end, it offers to turn your mistakes and missed mates into puzzles. Load a game by PGN, FEN, position editor or photo scanner. DAILY SESSION Every day, what to review: opening positions that are due, missed puzzles, an endgame. A streak of days and medals to keep you going. OPENINGS 58 hand-written openings (bilingual), checked against the engine: every move is explained, coloured arrows tie the board to the move list, and spaced repetition makes them stick. Import your own repertoires as PGN too. ENDGAMES 78 courses proven by endgame tablebases: no move taught gives up a win, no defence offered loses a draw. Plus free training, where any move that keeps the verdict is accepted. PUZZLES Over 130,000 problems from the Lichess database, filtered by level and theme, plus your own: drawn from your mistakes, or imported from your own PGN files. Personal rating and “At my level”. VARIANTS AND MORE Chess960 and eleven variants against the computer (King of the Hill, Three-Check, Horde, Atomic, Crazyhouse, Duck Chess, Barricades…), each with its own analysis. Two-player mode, and a Laboratory to compare two Stockfish settings. IPHONE AND IPAD A large board with side-by-side panels on iPad, keyboard and trackpad, portrait and landscape. Fully bilingual, French and English. Optional iCloud sync, off by default. PRIVACY Offline by default: no ChessLab server, no analytics, no ads. Your games stay on your device. ChessLab embeds the Stockfish engine (GPLv3 license), the University of Toronto's Maia-3 network (AGPLv3 license) and free vector piece sets — cburnett (GPLv2+/CC BY-SA), chessnut (Apache 2.0) and merida (GPLv2+). Full source code and license notices are available from within the app (Settings → Licenses).
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: ChessLab at none against Square Worlds's 1. Square Worlds's advantage is iOS requirement (7.0 vs 18.0). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Square Worlds sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. ChessLab asks for nothing beyond the download.
Square Worlds ships an update fortnightly, ChessLab weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Square Worlds | ChessLab |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (6 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 59 MB | 194 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sunil Patel | Thierry Maeder |
In-app purchases
Square Worlds
- Extra Modes$0.99
ChessLab
No in-app purchases









