Speller Chess vs Ply Chess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Speller Chess
This game offers a simplified chess experience for two players on a single device, designed for individuals with fine motor challenges. It minimizes distractions to enhance focus on gameplay, with a straightforward move system and a manual reset for game completion.
- Large board for two players on one device
- Minimal distractions for focus
- Simple click-to-move piece selection
- Manual game reset option
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Speller Chess is an app designed for people who have fine motor difficulties. It features a large board for two players, so two people can play at the same time on one device. It is also designed to have as few distractions as possible, so that players can focus on the game. To move pieces, click on the piece you want to move, then click on the square you want to move that piece to. To unselect a piece, simply click it again. As of now, there is no check or checkmate added, so click the "reset game" button when one player wins.
Ply Chess
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Ply Chess is a modern, Apple-native chess app for iPhone and iPad — a beautiful board, a strong opponent, and a real path from your first moves to club-level play. Everything runs on-device, so you can play, solve and learn with no account and no internet connection required. PLAY Challenge Arasan, a strong chess engine that runs entirely on your device, at five difficulty levels from relaxed Beginner games to a genuine Expert test. Choose your time control, pick a side, and play at your own pace — the engine never phones home and never watches you play. LEARN Work through 13 courses across three levels, from how the pieces move to opening repertoires and attacking the king, in the spirit of a proven step-by-step method. Every lesson teaches on the board itself, with highlighted squares, arrows and practice positions instead of walls of text. SOLVE Train tactics with thousands of hand-picked puzzles spanning every rating band, plus a fresh Daily Puzzle. An adaptive selector keeps the difficulty matched to your solving rating as you improve. REVIEW After any game, get a full move-by-move analysis: every move classified from brilliant to blunder, an evaluation graph you can scrub through, the game's key moments called out, and a retry mode to replay your mistakes and find the better move yourself. DESIGN & ACCESSIBILITY Six board themes, Liquid Glass throughout, and a design built for everyone: full VoiceOver support with every square and move spoken aloud, Dynamic Type, and respect for Reduce Motion, Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast. PRIVACY No ads, no tracking, no third-party analytics. Your games, ratings and progress stay on your device unless you choose Ply Pro, in which case they sync only through your own private iCloud account. FREE, NO ACCOUNT REQUIRED Play unlimited games against the engine at every difficulty. Each day you also get one full game review, one hint per game, and five puzzles plus the Daily Puzzle. Every Beginner course is free to complete, and your last 10 games are always kept. PLY PRO Upgrade for unlimited game reviews, unlimited hints, the entire puzzle library, the complete Learn path from Beginner to Intermediate, your full game history, and iCloud sync across all your devices. - Ply Pro Monthly: $2.99/month - Ply Pro Annual: $19.99/year, with a 1-week free trial Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in Settings on your device. Prices are shown in USD and may vary by region. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://orinbyte.com/plychess/privacy/ Ply Chess's chess engine is built on Arasan, open-source software used under license.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Speller Chess at none against Ply Chess's 2. Speller Chess also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). 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. Ply Chess sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Speller Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.
Speller Chess ships an update fortnightly, Ply Chess every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Speller Chess | Ply Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 0 MB | 56 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yanling Wang | rociiu |
In-app purchases
Speller Chess
No in-app purchases
Ply Chess
- Ply Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
- Ply Pro Annual7 Days trial$19.991 Year





