
Alien Chess: Great Fun for Young Learners
Alien Chess seems to be a future app that is going to be developed by me. I like the idea of how aliens becomes one of the chess pieces.
Well, I just wanted to tell everyone about how it works and what the age is suitable with.
First of all, I would suggest young children aged 5 - 10 play this app/board.
Second point, if you're using a board to play the alien chess, there will be sounds for every move that you make. For each special moves such as Castling, Taking other pieces and Checkmate each has its funny and special sounds. If you're using the real website, then for each and every game you play, your alien grows BIGGER!
Third point, the website includes learning objectives. Such as your child is going to be learning the openings, middle games, end games and checkmates taught by a wise old alien. Everything is made visual on a dynamic 2D board (where captured pieces explode with a satisfying pop!), and each lesson includes interactive activities & mini-games to provide hands-on practice for each concept.
Also great is the Play area: This is what it's all about! Here your child works their way through six saurian opponents, from the easy-to-beat 8utwhybot Alien. Versus the easier opponents, your youngling enjoys a material "odds" advantage of some kind (see screen below), so the focus here is on converting a winning advantage, avoiding blunders (dropped pieces), and mastering basic checkmates.
Fifth Point: The Fight module is an arcade-style incentive for the user to complete all of the lessons in the Learn area. Remember how I said the aliens gets bigger after every lesson? Well, the "Fight" area rewards their efforts in a way that probably won't appeal to adult users. Here, you pick from the same six opponents as in "Play" and use your finger to pop these strange bubbles that fall from the sky. Each bubble has a fight move that you can use to try to push your opponent off the screen. There's nothing chess-related here, but again, your success in the Learn section will make or break you in a "fight."
That's it! If you're trying to raise a chess-lover (& you have an iPad), you should definitely take a look at Alien Chess. I'd certainly recommend it when it's completely setup!