Pulsar Chess Engine vs Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pulsar Chess Engine
Play chess and six popular variants with adjustable AI difficulty levels. Review logged games, access master game collections, and utilize Crafty engine analysis for standard chess and Chess960. Offers accessibility features for blind users.
- Plays 7 chess variants
- Adjustable AI difficulty levels
- Game logging and review
- Master game collections
- Crafty engine analysis
- VoiceOver accessibility
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The Pulsar Chess Engine plays Chess and six variants all with multiple levels. The variants are Chess960, Crazyhouse, Loser's, Atomic, Three Checks and Giveaway. Rules included in-app. In addition, there is also a review mode to look at the user's log file with analysis available for non variants. 10 game collections of classic and modern master games are included to look at including Kasparov, Fischer, Carlsen, Capablanca and Morphy 1858 collections. These collections and the log file are searchable. Pulsar values mobility and active positions. In app there is an article with more on its playing style and how to train against it. With the variants, each has its own style. Chess960, Three Checks and Crazyhouse are the more chess like variants and adoptable to learn to play for anyone with interest. The rules of all games are in app. Pulsar has levels of play from beginner too advanced. Games with a time control are the hardest though Pulsar doesn't call the player's time. The time is more to handicap Pulsar's strength, but users will have a clock and can see if it's gone negative if they want to play the time control. The game button - configure game menu item, lets the user control the variant and difficulty. It defaults to Chess at Easy(lowest level) but remembers the current settings when the App restarts. There are choices of pieces and board color schemes. The Pulsar program was originally developed by me for computers starting in 1998 and came to mobile for the first time in 2014. Pulsar's board is accessible to the blind using Voice Over, a screen reader. Tap on a square and it will say whats on it and double tap to move or choose from three move methods. A screen reader can normally read anything with text like a button, but a board is a collection of images. To make it accessible, text must be returned to Voice Over when a tap is in the area of a square. Pulsar began as a chess program and later learned variants. It ran extensively on two servers for many years both at chess and variants. The ratings on the board reflect strength I saw in rated play on handicapped bots. They are not 100% exact but generalizations I made from the various bots I ran at different settings. If in the new game selector, Play vs. Computer is unchecked the user can move for both sides. This is to allow two people at same location to use the App as a board for a game and have the app enforce move legality and results for whatever variant is selected.
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)
Master chess tactics with over 2500 exercises focused on delivering checkmate in one move. This app provides structured lessons, hints, and explanations to improve your tactical understanding and speed, suitable for beginners to intermediate players.
- 2500+ mating exercises
- Focus on mate in one move
- Hints and explanations
- Speed training tool
- Interactive lessons
- Rating change monitoring
- Offline functionality
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If you are a beginner, you should practice much to mate in one move. This course provides excellent material for this training. The big number of exercises (2500) covers different methods of mating. Many of them is an excellent tool for speed training even for stronger players. This is a rare course that is intended even for players with USCF rating of 600. Even if you only study and solve 10% of the exercises, you will learn a huge number of mating patterns and probably never miss a mate in one again! 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. Few-figured positions 1.1. Rook checkmates 1.2. Queen checkmates 1.3. Bishop checkmates 1.4. Knight checkmates 1.5. Pawn checkmates 1.6. Any piece checkmates 2. Many-figured positions 2.1. Rook checkmates 2.2. Queen checkmates 2.3. Bishop checkmates 2.4. Knight checkmates 2.5. Pawn checkmates 2.6. Any piece checkmates 3. Complicated positions 3.1. Checkmates with help of the King 3.2. Underpromotions 3.3. Mate with pawn promotion 3.4. Discovered check 3.5. Double check 4. Any piece checkmates 4.1. Volume 1 4.2. Volume 2 4.3. Volume 3 4.4. Volume 4 4.5. Volume 5 4.6. Volume 6 4.7. Volume 7 4.8. Volume 8 4.9. Volume 9 4.10. Volume 10 4.11. Volume 11 4.12. Volume 12 4.13. Volume 13 4.14. Volume 14 4.15. Volume 15 4.16. Volume 16 4.17. Volume 17 4.18. Volume 18 4.19. Volume 19 4.20. Volume 20 4.21. Volume 21 4.22. Volume 22 4.23. Volume 23
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) at Free against Pulsar Chess Engine's $1.99. Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.3) and review sentiment (92% vs 70%). Pulsar Chess Engine's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On 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
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) is free to download; Pulsar Chess Engine costs $1.99 up front. Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pulsar Chess Engine asks for nothing beyond the download.
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) has 178 ratings behind it against 12, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 70% of Pulsar Chess Engine's written reviews are positive against 92% of Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)'s.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | Pulsar Chess Engine | Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (12 ratings) | 4.8 (178 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 70.0% of reviews | 92.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 12 | 178 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 8.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 42 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Michael Adams | Chess King |
Customer experience
Pulsar Chess Engine
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)
In-app purchases
Pulsar Chess Engine
No in-app purchases
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)
- Full course$1.99
Questions
Is Pulsar Chess Engine free?
Is Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) free?
Which has better reviews, Pulsar Chess Engine or Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)?
Do Pulsar Chess Engine or Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pulsar Chess Engine or Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)?
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