Acid Ape Chess
Acid Ape Chess is aimed at serious players. It will not explain you what the en passant rule is nor display a shiny 3D chessboard. Instead, Acid Ape Chess provides you with the best chess user experience available on Android.
Acid Ape Chess is 100% free: no in-app purchases, no advertisements.
Acid Ape Chess features include:
• Play online on FICS/ICC/Lichess, or offline against chess engines.
• Support for external UCI and CECP (aka. WinBoard/XBoard) chess engines, with pondering, adjustable strength and access to engine-specific settings. Supports the Open Exchange protocol (Komodo, Texel, ...) for easy engine registration.
• Three strong builtin engines are provided: Arasan (ranked #27-28 on CCRL 40/40, ELO 3037), Cheng 4 (ranked #31 on CCRL 40/40, ELO 3020) and Scorpio (ranked #55 on CCRL 40/40, ELO 2884).
• Uses an online service to provide Syzygy 3-4-5-6 men endgame tablebases. The use of an online service is the only practical way to benefit from state-of-the-art endgame tablebases on a mobile device, as the complete Syzygy 3-4-5-6 set requires more than 1 TB of disk space.
• Engine-aided analysis with real-time best move display. When there are less than 7 pieces left on the board, the online Syzygy 3-4-5-6 men endgame tablebases are automatically queried, immediately providing you with the perfect solution of the game.
• Automatic analysis: in this mode, the best move is automatically applied every x seconds until a checkmate or draw position is reached.
• Connect to your DGT e-Board via Bluetooth and record two-player games; play against engines or remote humans.
• ECO opening information is displayed.
• A multi-page interface: multiple chessboards and utility pages can be opened simultaneously. You can for instance watch several tournament games concurrently, or analyze different variations. Pages can be switched by swiping left/right or by using the page list.
• Easy move list navigation with large previous/next buttons.
• A LCD chess clock modeled after real hardware, with sound and flag display.
• Configurable board and pieces appearance
• Non-disruptive in-game chat using a subwindow at the bottom of the chessboard.
• A scratch board for testing ideas and variations.
• A board editor for creating specific positions, which can be analyzed or played against an engine.
• A game database where all the games you have played or watched are saved. Saved games can be displayed, analyzed, or even replayed against an engine from any position. Moreover, you can view all the games you have played against a specific opponent.
• When a game starts, your personal record against your opponent is displayed. You can also view all the games you have played against that opponent.
• FEN support: copy/paste.
• PGN support: copy/paste, load/save.
• Edit variations, move annotations and comments.
• Full Chess960 support.
• Blindfold mode, using speech synthesis and an advanced speech recognizer (moves are recognized with near-perfect accuracy). This mode can be used with online games, engine games and tactical puzzles.
• Watch live games from major professional tournaments.
• First-class support for many chess server features: list games and watch other games, list users, display user information, display rankings, chat with a specific user or in public channels, edit finger notes.
• FICS/ICC timeseal support, for negating the effects of network lag.
• Premove support.
• Engine duels: have two engines fight eachother from the initial position or from any game position.
• Simuls: play simultaneous exhibitions against chess engines.
• Solve tactical puzzles of varying difficulty and import additional puzzles from PGN files.
• Share your games on social networks or via email.
• Advanced move indicators displaying engine evaluation scores.
Category : Puzzle
Reviews (29)
Has a choice of three chess engines and a somewhat confusing interface compared to say Droidfish. None of the three engines is compatible with Droidfish as they use a different protocol. The free version lacks the ability to use an available collection of additional engines as well as saving a current game to resume play later. You can upgrade to add additional worthy features but its regular price is about $20 and requires about a half gig of storage space. Recommended if you can afford it.
Great interface, many options, BUT It's upsetting to be in a good position in the game, and always when you know you are about to win, to have the program show that you forfeited by disconnection. How your opponent does this??? The other issue they can leave the game and keep you waiting for their move, just to find out they left the game a minute or to ago! I even gave up on ratings, they mean nothing!
Oh dear. I always thought that the beta version of this app was too good to be true, and so it has proved. In all honesty, it was so good that it should not have been free. Now, the free version is so restricted as to be hardly worth downloading, while the paid-for version is far too expensive. The upgrade to version 1 is required to continue using this app, which no longer allows multiple chess engines to be imported and used - the main selling point, to me, of the older version. Uninstalled
The description for this app leads you to believe the listed features are free, but in fact it seems that anything other than actually playing a game simply opens a screen prompting you to pay. Nothing wrong with paying for services and features of course but I would like it to be made a little clearer in the apps description if possible. When even the 'Help' section is behind a pay-wall then something's wrong! Edited to reflect the unforgivable rudeness of the devs.
not exactly sure how to use this and any thing I click on in the menu takes me to the pos for the advanced version that cost nearly 20 bucks. even when I click on 'help' it just tries to sell me the advanced version. Oh my bad, I thought the app I downloaded was for playing chess. I didn't realize it's just an advertisement trying to sell me another app... I thank you for clarifying that. You lose a star for your smart*** response that tells me nothing about how to use the app I already have
Notice ALL the 1-star ratings? This *was* a little promising, if rather mediocre. The "beta" version held some promise, but was really nothing to write home about. But the "new" version costs $18.99, which is insane for an interface to a *free* chess server. I'd have been happy to pay $5 (even though this software was pretty middling), but $20 for a chess interface? Not happening. Yafi is better and free. Stop making garbage and let me know if your pricing ever becomes reasonable.
What was once a great chess app has been ruined by an over reaching monetization strategy by the developer. The core of the app is still well made, but the advanced features that set this apart from others have been removed and are now featured in another version of this software which currently costs nearly $20. Certainly the developer deserves compensation for their efforts, but the pricing most likely needs to be reconsidered. EDIT: Changed to 1 star after the dev's comment.
This is more like it! Spent days trying various apps. All had serious limitations one way or another. You do not hold back on features or configurability! Thank you. This is obviously a labor of love. Any negative reviews Polly have not tried many apps yet they will be back lol thanks again!
Still one of the best free chess offering! Even with some features removed, this app remains pretty much unrivaled among free chess apps and even other paid ones. A big thank you to the dev for keeping this free version ad-free. Don't mind the haters, keep up the great work!
my rating is low because i could never make my dgt board connect with this app. mine is usb version without Bluetooth. same board works perfectly with CHESS FOR ANDROID app.unfortunately that app doesn't support online play.acid ape chess shows board initialization error. tried with many different Android phones.Hope this will be fixed.
Really? I rate this 5 stars for this app in all other chess apps. It works fine in the previous app because the goal is to improve a serious chess player now the goal is to improve the app and earn some cash and improve the app again and again it so very expensive USD TO PHP to convert how much is it from us in the Philippines. Im really disappointed for this app, you could just add some features like auto forward button not to cut the features of the free app. Chess collection is also useless.
looks like a great app, but I was hoping it would work with my dgt USB board. it gives an error message about not being able to initialize the e board. Since my dgt pi and the chess for android app work fine with the board, I assume this is a bug in acid ape chess.
Never thought I'd reconsider Lichess as my default go-to chess booty call, but I'm amazed at how rich, well-integrated, and intuitive Acid Ape is. Small question: I might be missing it, but is there a way to set up a clockless (correspondence, essentially) game with an engine? Thanks and bravo.
Awesome chess app! Easily the best free one, I've encountered for beginners and advanced players alike. Loved features like engine vs engine play, FICS server, multiple configurable engines, Tactics trainer.
I absolutely love everything about this app... my only question to the development team is... will there be an update to use it with my DGT SMART board?... the app is near flawless! and works great with my DGT Bluetooth board... I do travel a lot and my SMART board is just a little more ergonomic and not having to tote around my somewhat heavier Bluetooth board, and DGT PI ... Again this not a complaint just a question to the development team of the awesome app ... keep up the great work!!
Well...the price is too high for the features of the paid version, which are easily obtainable from other applications. Given this, this free version should be renamed to "Acid Ape Chess Useless Edition". At least, it is useless for me and most of the standard users out there...😐😐
Excellent chess tool. The user interface is the best I have used for Android. The rodent iii is my favorite engine for practice. Would really like to see newer versions in the future. Awesome 👍
Its ok to charge for good software, but there's a limit somewhere. Also a limit on my behalf when you start offending your customers. DGT board support requires GM edition of the app, which initially costs 20$. Ok, well enough. But then you must buy DGT drivers via an in-app-purchase for a hefty 50$. Kind of a rip-off with respect to the initially advertised features, isn't it? After getting yelled at when I complained about non-working software, I called it a day. Refunded and uninstalled.
After a while it requires one to buy paid version. Not worth it!!!
Very good.Hope next version it's will compatible with dgt bluetooth and smartboard.Also add option - values always from white's point of view.Current engine analysis is from black's point of view,very confusing.
This is a fantastic chess suite. I particularly love the online play using the dgt board, this is the most reliable software option I have found for that. Thanks for a great app.
Perfect game! I love it... Only give to this app a saving option so that I can resume the game from where I left it just in case I may want to open other apps.
waste of time and an insult to users. from a recommendable app to a completely useless one in just one day. you guys made a huge progress. congratulations! earning money by selling free engines like asmfish and stockfish is not a good idea at all you genius people. chess fans already know how to get those free engines for free ( 0.00 $ ) online . guess what? they work on free android version of stockfish (available on playstore) too ! hahaha
It was better when the PGN was free and didnt need to buy such an expensive app to look at past games, but convenient when looking for fast games.
Don't even bother to download. There are a lot of better chess apps you can use plus the devs can't even handle a bad review properly, what a trash.
Since a previous update most of my best third party engines are not there any more. Been Chess League Champion 3 times and Winner stays on Champion 2 times.
Response: please re-read your description for the previous version. It said your app will be free, and didn't state that features will be removed as and when you please. Lost data because you haven't warned in your version log. Just another app developer who couldn't control his greed and cut open his golden egg laying duck 😅. And by the way, Maurizio's art will speak about him; his font is still free. 500 characters, or I would have given a more thorough review of removed features.
I just want to touch the icon and start playing chess. I don't understand how to put software packages together to make it work. To me this is not usable.
The interface is very clean and responsive. It has a bit more resistance than some other while dragging pieces, which I enjoy because it isn't as easy to make accidental moves. The only issue I have is that it feels more like a demo for the paid version than its own app. The paid version should have more features, but it seems that basic things are locked. It is also interesting how you have to download the app to see which features are premium. The end of the description doesn't specify which.