Mindful Chess vs Braintide
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Mindful Chess
Read full descriptionHide full description
Mindful Chess is a complete chess training app: solve puzzles, learn openings that stay with you, analyze any position and play a bot, all on your device. Solving quickly earns bonus points, but every wrong move costs points too, so the game rewards careful calculation over guessing. 100% OFFLINE โ POWERED BY MINDFUL ENGINE Every feature runs on your device: the puzzles, the opening lessons, the analysis board and the bot itself. Mindful Engine is a chess engine written from scratch for this app, so there is no third-party server anywhere in the loop. Put your phone in airplane mode and the whole app keeps working. FEATURES โข 1.4 Million Offline Puzzles: Tactics taken from real games, ready anytime with no connection needed. A progress bar shows how many moves each puzzle needs, and the move list shows what has been played. โข NEW! See Why a Move Fails: Play a wrong move and your opponent's best answer appears on the board with a one-line explanation, such as "Check, but not mate: Black blocks with ...f6." โข Daily Puzzle โ Free for Everyone: One hard puzzle a day, the same for every player in the world, with a single attempt. The clock starts the moment the board is revealed and the fastest solve tops the leaderboard; each mistake adds 20 seconds. Build a streak, share your result and, if you like, get a reminder at the time you choose. โข Opening Trainer โ Openings That Actually Stick: Every line is first walked through with move-by-move explanations, then you play it back yourself. Spaced repetition remembers exactly which move you struggle with and brings it back just before you would forget it. 89 variations across 26 major openings, from the Sicilian and the London System to the Catalan and the Benko Gambit, trainable from either side. Starter lines in the Italian Game and the French Defence are free; the full course unlocks with Pro. โข NEW! Analyze Position, Now From a Screenshot (Pro): Set the pieces up yourself, or pick a screenshot of a board and the position is rebuilt on your device; any square it isn't sure about is marked for you to check. See the best move and a full evaluation, play any legal move to get the engine's reply, then continue the position against the bot. Made for finished games, puzzles and study positions. โข NEW! Opening Encyclopedia, Rebuilt (Pro): Over 3,800 named openings and variations from the open Lichess opening database, arranged in five ECO volumes and searchable by name or code. โข Three Bot Difficulties โ Free: Beginner, Club and Master, all on your device. The bot opens from a real opening book and only starts making mistakes once the opening is over, because that is when real players start making them. โข Hints and Blunder Coach (Pro): Ask for the best move in the middle of a game against the bot, catch a blunder the moment you play it and take it back. In puzzles, see the next move when you're stuck. โข Live Match โ Face-to-Face Multiplayer: Challenge a friend in the same room. Two devices connect directly over your local network, no internet required. Choose your color and time control (3, 5 or 10 minutes, or untimed), offer draws and play instant rematches. โข A Real Wooden Board: Maple and walnut squares, pieces that glide, legal moves that light up, and crisp sounds and haptics on every move. โข Game Center: Two leaderboards, your all-time score and the daily race (requires internet to sync). NO ADS. NO ACCOUNT. NO TRACKING. Puzzles, opening lessons and your progress stay on your device. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to opt out of. Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. LOOKING FOR A BIGGER CHALLENGE? The Mindful Chess Advanced Pack unlocks an extra archive of 1.7 million master-level (1800+ Elo) puzzles. Thanks to Smart Storage, it downloads only when you unlock it, so the initial download stays light.
Braintide
Read full descriptionHide full description
82 short games across ten mental skills, one daily workout, and a score that means something. TRAINS TEN SKILLS Memory, attention, processing speed, problem solving, language, flexibility, numeracy, spatial reasoning, coordination and listening. Every one of them has at least one game that is free forever, so you can train your whole brain without paying anything. EIGHT WAYS TO ANSWER Most brain trainers are a tap and a swipe. Braintide asks you to tap, flick, drag, draw, turn a dial, spell a word from letter tiles, type a number โ and, in five games, to make a sound. Nothing else in the category listens. Some games have no options at all. Set It Straight and Wind Back are scored on how many degrees off you were; On the Mark on how many milliseconds. There is nothing to guess between and nothing to eliminate. A DAILY WORKOUT THAT KNOWS WHAT YOU HAVE NEGLECTED Three games a day, chosen by what you have left longest. The difficulty follows you: every skill has its own level, and the engine holds you near the edge of what you can do rather than where you started. A STREAK THAT FORGIVES ONE MISSED DAY Losing a sixty-day run to one bad night is where people stop opening a training app. Braintide forgives one missed day and ends the run on two โ and it tells you that rule on the home screen, because a forgiving streak is only honest if you know what you are being held to. THE CHECKPOINT โ THE ONE NUMBER YOU CAN COMPARE Here is the problem every brain trainer has and none of them mentions: an adaptive engine moves the difficulty to keep you at about 78% success. That is right for training and useless for measuring. Your score hovers while the difficulty climbs underneath it. So Braintide has a checkpoint: the same ten short games, at the same fixed difficulty, every couple of weeks, never fed back into your levels. It is the only figure in the app that can honestly be compared with last time, and it says so. WHAT BRAINTIDE WILL NOT DO No percentile. No brain age. No ranking against other players. Braintide has no data about other people and will not invent any โ and the app says exactly that, on the screen where every other app would show you a number. YOURS, AND ACTUALLY YOURS โข Works completely offline. No account, ever. โข No ads, on any plan. โข Export every round you have played to a JSON file, in one tap, written on your device and handed straight to your share sheet. โข Nothing is sold on. THE FIVE GAMES THAT LISTEN Say When, Hold the Note, Fade Out, Clap Back and Clap the Count use the microphone. What they read is how loud the room is โ one number, sixty times a second. Nothing is recorded, kept, or recognised, there is no speech recognition anywhere in the app, and no audio leaves your phone. The daily workout leaves them out unless you ask for them. BUILT TO BE READ Twelve languages, translated all the way down โ every game's name and rules, the achievement names, even the notification. A colour-safe palette for red-green and blue-yellow colour vision, checked by simulation rather than by eye. Reduce Motion honoured everywhere. Zen mode eases the clocks right off. Braintide trains focus and memory for fun. It is not a medical device and makes no claim to diagnose, treat or prevent any condition. BRAINTIDE PRO Braintide Pro unlocks all 82 games, the weekly report and full per-skill history. โฌ1.99 per month or โฌ9.99 per year, each with a one-week free trial. Prices vary by region. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends; you can manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use: https://tritonapps.com/braintide/terms EULA: https://tritonapps.com/braintide/eula Privacy Policy: https://tritonapps.com/braintide/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
Mindful Chess and Braintide are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters โ price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them โ neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Mindful Chess sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Braintide sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Mindful Chess ships an update weekly, Braintide every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Mindful Chess | Braintide |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Weekly โ better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 16.4 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 280 MB | 74 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Volkan Mutluer | Andrew O Riordan |
In-app purchases
Mindful Chess
- Pro Version Unlock$2.99
- 1800+ Elo Advanced Puzzles$4.99
Braintide
- Braintide Pro โ Monthly7 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Braintide Pro โ Yearly7 Days trial$8.991 Year
Questions
Is Mindful Chess free?
Is Braintide free?
Do Mindful Chess or Braintide have ads?
Which is updated more often, Mindful Chess or Braintide?
Other comparisons















