Knight Runner by Play Magnus for Android

Why are you blocking Syrian users ?

Addicting gameplay, clean graphics.

A creative way to get more familiar with knight movement

I think the core idea behind this game is brilliant and has potential, but a few blunders were made in its execution that limited its success. The most egregious blunder is teaching chess rules. The type of person to download this game has already played chess before; I would be surprised if there was a single person learning chess rules via this game. So even having a default on tutorial wastes the user’s time, let alone a long unskippable one. This tutorial phase is so boring I’d bet few people get through it. A much more compelling first impression would be starting with a real puzzle from the get-go, with no highlights. The second big blunder is the lack of a “rating” equivalent. Your audience is chess players; we love increasing some number indicative of our skill level. There is no such number in this game. There’s only scores for each level, which don’t really reflect skill, just experience with that level. There’s nothing worth comparing with others, nothing to tie your ego to. I think the game would be much more compelling as an infinite procedurally generated runner that gets progressively harder. Something extra enticing would be a score system that resembles the elo system, complete with titles. It’d be handwavy but still compelling. Then there’s smaller blunders: Making tiles non-square; I get why you did it, but it wasn’t worth the sacrifice in pattern recognition carry-over from real chess. Portals add complexity without adding value Can get killed by off screen pieces I took the time to write this review because I feel like some genuine love was put into this game and it could be great.

Fun way to practice moving the knight quickly!