ChessCraft vs Catanalyst
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ChessCraft
Explore a chess sandbox where you can customize boards, rules, and pieces. Create unique chess variants, play against an AI, or challenge friends online. Discover and share your custom chess creations with a global community.
- Customizable chess boards and pieces
- AI computer opponent
- Online multiplayer with friends
- Adventure mode with built-in boards
- Chess variant database
- Create new pieces and tile rules
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Never play the same game of chess again! ChessCraft is a chess sandbox with an AI computer opponent. Customize chess boards, rules, and pieces. Share your creations online. Play your friends online, or play the computer, or choose from one of 75 built-in chess boards in adventure mode. ChessCraft is also the world's largest chess variant database. https://www.chesscraft.ca Many chess AI mobile games already exist, but only ChessCraft allows the player to create such wacky boards and pieces and immediately play a decent computer opponent. Create new pieces with any combination of the 8 bishop or rook slides, plus a 7x7 grid of knight-like hops. Pieces can also enhance or restrict nearby pieces. Create new boards with any enabled or disabled tile up to 16x16. Place promotion rules for any piece, anywhere. Place tile rules like witch windows (teleporters), sanctuaries, and more. The computer AI opponent then uses concepts from computer science and graph theory to understand your creations and play against you. When you share a board, your friends can play the AI too. Sharing creates a new web page just for you, like this: https://www.chesscraft.ca/design?id=shape-variant1 Visit the website and send me an email if you have any feedback or questions. If you like the game, please rate it!
Catanalyst
Enhance your board game nights with a companion app for strategic board game enthusiasts. It offers fair board generation, real-time score tracking, detailed dice statistics, and a comprehensive rules reference, all accessible offline.
- Fair board generation with multiple modes
- Real-time score tracking
- Dice statistics and probability charts
- Comprehensive rules reference
- Support for 2-6 player boards
- Offline functionality
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Catanalyst - Catan Companion App Take your Catan game nights to the next level with Catanalyst. Catanalyst is the all-in-one companion app designed for serious and casual Catan players alike - fair boards, live score tracking, dice statistics, and rules reference, all in one place. Board Generator Generate a new Catan board every game, tailored to how you want to play. Choose from three generation modes: - Random: free placement with minimal restrictions, perfect for casual play - Balanced: smart resource and number distribution for a fair game every time - Optimized: mathematically precise placement with strict adjacency rules, pip balancing and port constraints for the most competitive experience Full support for both 2-4 player (standard) boards and 5-6 player (extension) boards. Score Tracker Track every player's victory points in real time during the game or log results after the fact. Perfect for groups who want to keep a running history across multiple sessions. Features include: - Configurable VP target (5–22 points) with quick presets - Track settlements, cities, roads, development cards, Longest Road and Largest Army - Hidden VP card reveal after game over - Undo support for every action, per player - Auto-dismissing action bar with tactile button feedback - Save completed games to history with one tap — see who won, final scores, and player count for every past game across multiple sessions Dice Tracker Log every roll manually as you play, or use the built-in digital dice for a fully automated experience. Find out if that 6 really did roll less than it should — detailed statistics and probability distribution charts show exactly how the dice fell across the full session. Quick Rules & Guide Never argue about the rules again. Catanalyst includes a complete reference guide covering building costs, turn sequence, special bonuses, placement rules, the robber and trading - all in one place with a direct link to the official Catan rulebook. Whether you're teaching new players or competing at the highest level, Catanalyst has everything you need at the table. No account required. No ads. No internet connection needed. Everything stays on your device. Stop arguing about the board. Let Catanalyst build a fair one.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Catanalyst at Free against ChessCraft's $5.99. Catanalyst also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.3) and update cadence (every 5 days vs every 9 months). ChessCraft's advantage is chart position (#184 vs unranked) and ratings volume (8 vs 1). On ads, in-app purchases 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
Catanalyst is free to download; ChessCraft costs $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Catanalyst holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ChessCraft has 8 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
ChessCraft ships an update every 9 months, Catanalyst every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ChessCraft | Catanalyst |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $5.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (8 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 90.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #184 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 166 MB | 21 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Stuart Spence | Esgil Software Inc. |
Customer experience
ChessCraft
Catanalyst
In-app purchases
ChessCraft
No in-app purchases
Catanalyst
No in-app purchases









