Why aren't there better chess video games?

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Ironplushy

I'm a pretty casual chess player. Usually play 2-3 games at my desktop after work, watch a chess video or two, do my daily puzzles. I'd like to practice more, but most chess video games are so poorly optimized. On switch, chess ultra is supposed to be the best, but it's so poorly designed. Every time you move through the menus it wants you to sign up for nintendo online even if you're just playing against a bot. Then when you finish a game, there is no quick way to start a fresh game.

Pure chess on vita is a bit better but you can't rewind a game which I feel is an extremely useful tool to try out sequences and see how they play out. Like, it can't be that hard to make a good chess game.

Make the board legible, no dumb cartoons or animated pieces. Have online matchmaking. Have a quickplay button that matches a bot or player to your rating immediately on start up and after games (this is like standard in fighting games). Have several difficulty options for bots. Have puzzles, opening demonstrations and defense demonstrations. Have full rewind.

I've played chess and I've worked in game design, and it always feels like the people who make chess videogames don't know basic fundamentals like menu optimization.

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