Zen Chess Collection bundles four previously released chess-based games by Minimol Games. The collection consists of Zen Chess: mate in one, Zen Chess: mate in two, Zen Chess: mate in three and Zen Chess: mate in four.
Short puzzles
The first thing you should know about the Zen Chess Collection is that you won’t actually play a (full) game of chess. The four games only offer a challenging puzzle based on the game of chess. As you might already have guessed by the titles of the games, you get a certain amount of moves to put your opponent in checkmate. The first game, Zen Chess: mate in one, offers 300 puzzles in which you only need to move one of your pieces to best your opponent with a checkmate. Since I’m used to chess from an early age, I had not much of a challenge with the first game. Although the challenges got harder over time, I was more interested in the harder games.
I jumped straight into Zen Chess: mate in four to get a feel for a real challenge. Moving your pieces to put maximum pressure on the opponent is a key part to control the opponents’ moves. One bad move and your opponent could find an “out” and foil your attempt at a checkmate in four/three/two. Luckily, the game already routed the ideal moves and resets the game once you make one such bad move. All this results in smooth puzzle experiences across all the games in the collection. At first, I had some trouble finding the ideal moves but found I got better at it as the challenges kept coming. This might actually benefit my actual end game in a real game of chess.
Minimalistic approach
The “Zen” part in Zen Chess comes from the minimalistic way the game is presented in. The visuals are all intentionally kept smooth and simple not to deteriorate from the actual gameplay. You can change the look of the game with some color schemes to choose from but that’s about it. The music helps to get to the Zen state. Soothing loungy music accompanying minimalistic visions, make this game all about your thought process during the challenges. I actually caught myself playing this game for a long time without even noticing the time passing by. A small caveat I had was the fact that the music repeats itself a bit too fast. So a bigger soundtrack might’ve helped. Taking into consideration the low cost of this collection, I can’t be too picky though.
No explanation
As I mentioned earlier, I was introduced to chess from an early age and played it pretty extensively throughout my youth. Nowadays I’m a bit rusty but felt right at home while playing Zen Chess Collection. Zen Chess: mate in one offered no real challenge to me but should be a great entry point for those new to the world of chess. The problem is the fact the game offers no explanation what-so-ever about the different pieces. The fact that certain pieces can only move in certain ways is not explained. You can even place each piece on every free square despite some of these moves being illegal. The game resets after such an illegal move but doesn’t offer an explanation as to why. A tutorial would’ve been ideal but highlighting the possible squares to move to once selecting a certain piece would’ve done the trick.
Conclusion
I wouldn’t advise Zen Chess Collection to somebody who never played chess before. Seasoned chess players won’t find much challenge in the game either. All the rest who dabbled into chess a bit and are into puzzles will certainly have a good time with this collection. The low price makes this a great addition to your collection… if you fit the above criteria.
