Posted in: Board Games, Games, Review, Tabletop | Tagged: GoChess, GoChess Lite, Particula

Learning & Mastering Chess: We Review The GoChess Lite

We had a chance to review the GoChess Lite, an electronic chess board designed to teach, compete, and bring a modern style to chess

No matter what era we live in, Chess will most likely be a forever game that will last another couple dozen centuries by passing it down through the generations. But as new players come up and the way people play games changes, those learning might not always have a specific outlet to learn the game that isn't just playing against a CPU or random opponents online. For many, having that tactile feel of playing on a regulation tournament board is a must-have. Particula, the tabletop company behind products like GoCube and GoDice, has launched its own set of chess games, fittingly called GoChess. They recently sent us a copy of the GoChess Lite to review, and here's what we took away from it after playing with it solo and with some friends.

So let's start by breaking down what exactly the GoChess Lite is. Yes, it's a chessboard; we just have to say that off the bat for sticklers who will criticize it for just being chess. But it's been designed to be so much more than that for anyone to learn or play the game at any level of mastery. This particular version gets its name from the design; as you can see below, it's one of the thinnest digital boards you'll find on the market, sized at tournament-ready specs, with 32 pieces and an extra two Queens. The board has been given both a light-up censor system with magnets built into the board to recognize piece movement.

This system is designed to give players the ability to see what options they have in front of them, correct them if they make a wrong move, and ultimately teach at a very basic level how the game works. Even if you're playing on your own against an AI opponent. The board comes with a free companion app with three different modes, as you can use to to play against a real-life opponent in Face-to-Face, seek competition through the app for Online matches, and finally Player vs. AI where you'll select the level of difficulty of the opponent to test your skills. The game also comes with connections to Chess.com and Lichess.org, so if you have an account with either, you can use the app to connect the board to a live game and use it to play rather than on the screen.

We tried out the online options as a solo player for a while, and honestly, it was giving us Chessmaster Hex vibes from Cowboy Bebop. And yes, that's high praise. The fact that I could sit on my couch with the GoChess Lite on my coffee table and play against an opponent online with my physical board was great. The one drawback was that it did require me to charge it a few times as I was playing, to the point where I basically left the charger in for extended play. I took this to a coffee shop to play with a friend one night, and we basically determined over the course of a few hours that if you just use the system as-is, you've got about 20 hours of gameplay without requiring a charge. But if you're using multiple items, such as being connected to a smart device as you play and using all the tools at your disposal, that battery life is going to drain quickly.

While playing against opponents and the AI is the fun part, the ultimate goal of this board is to teach you how to play. Much like the company's GoCube, which we have played with in the past, the board offers an array of options to help you learn the game. And not just basic moves and strategies, it will give you scenarios for you to figure a way out of, or challenge you to defeat the opponent in a certain number of moves. It reminded me of playing the original Chessmaster game on the NES, where every time you picked up a piece, you were given paths of how you could do things. But unlike other systems, it's not here to mock you if you get it wrong, it tries to encourage you to see where you went wrong and how you could have done better.

The AI challengers in GoChess Lite are okay for the most part; many of the lower-tier challengers are adept at playing the game and being outwitted. But once you crank that beyond Intermediate, they will bring the heat and make you think twice about where you moved that knight and why you thought it was a good idea to do it on your second move. If you get tired of learning the normal way, they also have daily chess puzzles you can take on to see if you can figure out the solution. The game also comes with progress tracking, which is probably a bonus for pro-players, but for a casual player like myself, it didn't serve a grand purpose. I also wanted to play with the lighting system to change colors or turn them off, but the customization options are pretty limited in the app.

Overall, I thought the GoChess Lite was a pretty awesome board to play on. The online features are definitely the highlight, or at least they were for me, being experienced at the game. The teaching was fine, but I suspect those wanting to learn more or become a Grandmaster will dive into them more deeply. The big factor for many people will be the pricetag, which as of when we're posting this, is set at $300. Which is why we addressed it being a chessboard at the start, because yes, you can go get a flat mat and some pieces for $10. But that's if you just want to own chess. This is for people who want to make chess a part of their life.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!