Groops vs Chess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Groops
This puzzle game challenges your mind by matching tiles based on shared or unique attributes. With hundreds of levels and exciting game modes like Time Attack and multiplayer, it offers endless fun and brain stimulation. Compete with friends and unlock achievements.
- Hundreds of levels
- Time Attack mode
- Leaderboards
- Multiplayer mode
- Unlockable achievements
- Hint system
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Groops is a puzzle game that will put your mind to the test. Match tiles three at a time based on either shared or completely unique attributes - the number of possibilities will tie your brain in knots! Keep your mind sharp. Play Groops! • Hundreds of levels of increasing difficulties! • Infinite, unlimited gameplay in “Time Attack” mode. Get to the top of the leaderboards and send your friends Challenge requests to beat your score! • Unlock dozens of Achievements! • Compete against friends in multiplayer mode - who can get the most Groops before time runs out? ********** ~ * Starbucks Pick of the Week in 2014 * ~ “This is an example of why we love games. Simple to understand, but very difficult to master.” - iPlayApps “Groops takes match-three to a whole new level.” - Daniel Celeste, AppAdvice.com “This game is more fun and challenging than my job! With a smooth design and intelligent matching, it is everything I look for to keep my mind stimulated during downtime” - HallelP “Fun but challenging game. Can’t put my phone down once I open this app!” - Stefi592 ********** GAMEPLAY MODES LEVELS - Relax, there’s no time pressure. Find all the possible Groops on the screen to advance. You can use Hints if you get stuck (get more by playing TIME ATTACK or from the Powerups menu). TIME ATTACK - Find as many Groops as possible before time runs out! Make 5 Groops in a row to increase your multiplier, but be careful! If you make an invalid Groop, your multiplier gets reset. Rack up as many points as possible because your score gets added to your points bank. ********** OK, HOW DO I PLAY? Match 3 tiles to make a Groop. Tiles have 4 attributes with three options each - SHAPE (square, circle, leaf), COLOR (blue, magenta, yellow), PATTERN (solid fill, striped fill, border only), and SYMBOL (diamond, hourglass, and its 3rd option is no symbol at all). Finding identical tiles is easy, but you’ll eventually need to make Groops based on mixed attributes, and thats where we kick your brain into full-throttle. Groops can be made by matching tiles with identical attributes, by matching all 3 options of 1 attribute, or by matching three different options across multiple attributes. For example: • Solid blue square with no symbol, solid blue circle with no symbol, and a solid blue leaf with no symbol. (Same shape - square, same color - blue, same pattern - solid, all different symbols) • Striped blue square with no symbol, solid magenta circle with a diamond, bordered yellow leaf with an hourglass (All different shapes, all different colors, all different patterns, all different symbols) NOTE: To make a Groop, either all options are the same, or all different across the attributes. For example, these would be invalid: • Solid blue square with no symbol, solid blue square with no symbol, solid blue circle with no symbol (two squares and a circle, instead of three squares, or one square, one circle, and one leaf) • Bordered magenta circle with a diamond, solid yellow circle with a diamond, solid yellow circle with an hourglass (Invalid for two reasons: 1) two yellows and a magenta instead of three yellows or one yellow, one magenta, and one blue. 2) two diamonds and an hourglass instead of three diamonds or one diamond, one hourglass, and one without any symbol at all) ********** Follow @play_groops on Twitter
Chess
Master defensive chess skills with over 3000 interactive exercises. This app acts as a personal coach, providing hints and explanations to improve your game. It's designed for beginners to consolidate fundamental defensive tactics.
- Over 3000 defensive exercises
- Interactive coach with hints and explanations
- Improve defensive tactics
- Track ELO rating changes
- Offline play capability
- Play positions against computer
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If you are a beginner, you just have to learn how to defend your pieces from being taken! Every chessplayer has to master and consolidate some basic defensive skills such as withdrawing or protecting a piece, interception or attacking an opponent's piece. Having consolidated your knowledge by doing a great number of exercises you will be able to improve your level of playing. This course includes more than 3000 exercises with lots of pieces on the board. Such a great number of exercises makes this course an excellent tool for quick training of chess beginners. This course is in the series Chess King Learn (https://learn.chessking.com/), which is an unprecedented chess teaching method. In the series are included courses in tactics, strategy, openings, middle game, and endgame, split by levels from beginners to experienced players, and even professional players. With the help of this course, you can improve your chess knowledge, learn new tactical tricks and combinations, and consolidate the acquired knowledge into practice. The program acts as a coach who gives tasks to solve and helps to solve them if you get stuck. It will give you hints, explanations and show you even striking refutation of the mistakes you might make. Advantages of the program: • High quality examples, all double-checked for correctness • You need to enter all key moves, required by the teacher • Different levels of complexity of the tasks • Various goals, which need to be reached in the problems • The program gives hint if an error is made • For typical mistaken moves, the refutation is shown • You can play out any position of the tasks against the computer • Interactive theoretical lessons • Structured table of contents • The program monitors the change in the rating (ELO) of the player during the learning process • Test mode with flexible settings • Possibility to bookmark favorite exercises • The application is adapted to the bigger screen of a tablet • The application does not require an internet connection The course includes a free part, in which you can test the program. Lessons offered in the free version is fully functional. They allow you to test the application in real world conditions before releasing the following topics: 1. Retreat 1.1. Defend your knight 1.2. Defend your bishop 1.3. Defend your rook 1.4. Defend your queen 2. Defending with another piece 2.1. Defend your knight 2.2. Defend your bishop 2.3. Defend your rook 3. Taking an attacking piece 3.1. Defend your knight 3.2. Defend your bishop 3.3. Defend your rook 3.4. Defend your queen 4. Interception 4.1. Defend your rook 4.2. Defend your queen 5. Defending from mate 5.1. Level 4 5.2. Level 5 5.3. Level 6 5.4. Level 7 5.5. Level 8 5.6. Level 9 5.7. Level 10 5.8. Level 11 5.9. Level 12 6. Difficulty level 6.1. Level 1 6.2. Level 2 6.3. Level 3 6.4. Level 4 6.5. Level 5 6.6. Level 6 6.7. Level 7 6.8. Level 8 6.9. Level 9 6.10. Level 10 6.11. Level 11 6.12. Level 12
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Groops at every 8 days against Chess's every 4 months. Groops also leads on ratings volume (675 vs 59). Chess's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 4.3). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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. Groops sells 6 one-off in-app purchases and Chess sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Chess holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Groops has 675 ratings behind it against 59, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 86% of Groops's written reviews are positive against 88% of Chess's.
Groops ships an update every 8 days, Chess every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Groops | Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (675 ratings) | 4.6 (59 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 85.6% of reviews | 87.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 675 — better | 59 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 | 8.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 12 MB | 42 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Torched Media LLC | Chess King |
Customer experience
Groops
Chess
Bugs and requests
Groops
Reported bugs
4 issues- Level 10 of 'brainz needed' bonus pack won't let user progress
- Crash after time attack finishes
- Level 45 of easy 4x4 board shows '0/ ' and crashes
- Win not recognized in local multiplayer
Requested features
4 requests- More levels and boards
- Ability to reset level scores
- Endless mode
- Ability to see previous groops found
Chess
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Groops
- pack of 50 Board Shuffles$0.99
- pack of 10 Hints$0.99
- pack of 5,000 Points$0.99
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- 3x3 Bonus Pack 1$1.99
- pack of 20,000 Points$2.99
- pack of 100,000 Points$12.99
Chess
- Full course$3.99









