Pure Chess

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"Pure Chess: Grandmaster Edition" is a realistic chess simulation, featuring stunning visuals and varying difficulty levels. The game includes multiple chess boards and pieces to choose from, and allows players to compete against AI or human opponents, both online and offline. This edition also offers additional grandmaster-approved chess puzzles to solve.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Local Multi-Player Play with friends in the same physical space using split-screen or multiple screens
2-Players Play with one other player, either online or locally, in a cooperative or competitive game mode
Multi-Player Compete or cooperate with other players online
Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo
Split Screen Play with multiple players on the same screen, often with divided or shared screen real estate

Reviews

59%

Audience ScoreBased on 195 reviews

graphics28 positive mentions

gameplay3 negative mentions

The game features beautiful graphics and relaxing music, creating an enjoyable atmosphere for playing chess.
It offers a variety of chess pieces and boards, along with challenging AI opponents, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced players.
The game includes chess challenges and graded exercises, which can help players improve their skills.

The game frequently crashes and has performance issues, making it difficult to play consistently.
The tutorials are poorly designed, providing vague explanations and lacking practical practice options for new players.
Online play is unreliable, with frequent disconnections and difficulties in finding opponents.

graphics
38 mentions
74 % positive mentions
18 % neutral mentions
8 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their stunning visuals, realistic effects, and beautiful environments, creating an engaging atmosphere for players. However, some users have noted issues with usability and limited graphics settings, particularly for widescreen users, which detracts from the overall experience. Despite these concerns, the game's visuals are considered a strong point, appealing to both casual and more serious chess players.
- “The levels of this game are excellent and the realistic graphic effects are superb!”
- “Fantastic 3D graphics.”
- “The graphics are really lovely and the atmosphere and ambiance is exactly what I was looking for.”
- “Absolute garbage game - no video options means widescreen users need to alter the PC graphics setting to play, otherwise you will be seeing marshmallow pieces stretched across the board.”
- “Yet, double check the system requirements: they're ridiculously high for a chess game and there's not much choice in terms of graphics settings.”
- “That is to say, the graphics are outstanding, but the gameplay lacks basic functionality.”
music
16 mentions
63 % positive mentions
19 % neutral mentions
19 % negative mentions
The music in Pure Chess is widely praised for its beautiful and relaxing quality, enhancing the overall gaming experience. Players appreciate the classic and soporific background music, which complements the game's visuals and challenging gameplay. However, some users have reported issues with sound output, particularly with headphones, and found the volume control instructions to be unclear.
- “Pure chess is even better on Steam than in the Nintendo 3DS version. I truly love Pure Chess; it's very challenging and fun, and the classic music is so relaxing.”
- “It's beautiful and it has some brilliant and relaxing music.”
- “A beautiful presentation, including different chess pieces and tables, beautiful and relaxing music.”
- “The background music adds a soporific mood.”
- “Music and sound effects don't seem to want to play through my headphones, only my internal speakers.”
- “Setting the volume of music and sound effects is explained in-game, but not in a helpful way; clicking the value and dragging the mouse (up or down) is the solution.”
gameplay
6 mentions
17 % positive mentions
33 % neutral mentions
50 % negative mentions
While the graphics are praised for their outstanding quality, the gameplay is criticized for lacking basic functionality and feeling sluggish, with specific issues noted such as the inability to disable certain on-screen icons.
- “- this will sound odd, but gameplay feels... sluggish.”
- “The graphics are outstanding, but the gameplay lacks basic functionality.”
- “This will sound odd, but gameplay feels... sluggish.”
- “Way to disable the two white corner icons during gameplay.”
optimization
4 mentions
0 % positive mentions
50 % neutral mentions
50 % negative mentions
The game suffers from significant optimization issues, leading to performance problems that detract from the overall experience. Users recommend avoiding it in favor of better-performing alternatives.
- “However, this version of the game is unoptimized and broken.”
- “Do yourself a favor, avoid the refund hoop jumping and pick another chess game that does not have performance issues or a store page which does not show the actual game.”
atmosphere
4 mentions
50 % positive mentions
50 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is highly praised for its lovely graphics and a comfortable, relaxing ambiance that evokes a sense of nobility. Players enjoy the serene experience, often enhanced by classical music, which contributes to the overall immersive environment.
- “The graphics are really lovely, and the atmosphere and ambiance are exactly what I was looking for.”
- “I feel a comfortable, relaxing, and somehow noble atmosphere, brooding over my virtual board while listening to Mozart.”
monetization
2 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The monetization of the chess game on Steam is praised for being affordable and free of annoying advertisements, providing a straightforward and enjoyable experience for players.