Zen Chess Collection

Genre: Puzzle / Board Game / Collection

Players: 1

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Review:

Zen Chess Collection is, at least nominally, a “Collection” of Puzzle challenges based on the classic game of Chess… although I feel that describing the game as such is very, very misleading. This is a “Collection” that includes four “Games” – Zen Chess: Mate in One, Zen Chess: Mate in Two, Zen Chess: Mate in Three, Zen Chess: Mate in Four. If you have any experience with Chess, that probably gives you a better idea what you’re in for.

If you don’t have experience with Chess, this is not the game for you. This game does not have any interest in explaining to new players the rules or premise of Chess. Choosing one of the four “games” immediately plunks you into the first puzzle without any instructions about rules or controls. For those who know how to play Chess, this is fine, but if you’re completely new to the game, you will be absolutely lost.

As for those who know how to play Chess, as the names of the four “games” indicate, these are basically just a series of challenges where you’re given a board with a preset layout, and you, playing as white, need to checkmate the opponent’s king within the allotted number of turns. And that’s… pretty much it. There’s not really any variety here, no using chess to explore interesting puzzle ideas or anything like that. No option even to just play a normal game of Chess. Zen Chess Collection is only a collection of challenges to checkmate the opponent in an allotted number of moves and nothing more.

As far as the presentation goes, this is one of the game’s stronger areas, with pleasant pastel backgrounds and a nice soundtrack. You even have your choice of two styles of chess pieces, although each comes with its own problems. The default set looks simple and elegant, but the king and queen look far too similar (something I find to frequently be a problem with chess set designs). The alternative set looks squat and ugly, it’s perfectly serviceable, but not ideal.

Beyond this, the other problem here is the game’s controls using a controller are pretty stiff, and overall from this game’s design it’s pretty clear it was made with a touchscreen in mind.

In total, Zen Chess Collection technically delivers on its premise of giving players a pleasant presentation as they play four chess-based games. It’s just that those games are all nearly identical, unimaginative, don’t control especially well, lack options, and do nothing to get new players acquainted with how chess works. Meh.

tl;dr – Zen Chess Collection contains four “games” that are all variations of “Mate the opponent in X moves”. It has a nice presentation, but the lack of variety and options here is really disappointing.

Grade: C-

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