Chessmaster is a
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
playing computer game series which is now owned and developed by
UbisoftUbisoft Entertainment S.A. is a French computer and video game publisher and developer with headquarters in Montreuil-sous-Bois, France. The company has facilities in over 20 countries, with studios in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City, Canada; Bucharest, Romania; Barcelona, Spain; Shanghai,...
. It is the best-selling chess franchise in history, with more than five million units sold .
The
Chessmaster series started in 1986 with
The Chessmaster 2000 by The Software Toolworks. It was published for
AmigaThe Amiga was a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985...
, Apple II,
Atari 8-bitThe Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips, giving them the most powerful graphics of any 8 bit computers of their time...
,
Atari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1985...
,
ZX SpectrumThe ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, the machine was launched as the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared with the...
,
Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January, 1982. Volume production started sometime in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$ 595...
,
MacintoshThe Macintosh, or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced on January 24 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a...
, and
DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
. In 1988,
Chessmaster 2100 was published for the
Apple IIGSThe Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, is the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer...
. In 1991,
Chessmaster 3000 was published for
Windows 3.xWindows 3.1x is a series of 16-bit operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during March 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0...
and in 1995 for
PlayStationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
.
The current version,
Chessmaster XIChessmaster: The Art of Learning is a video game of the board game genre released in 2007 by Ubisoft. Joshua Waitzkin, an International Master and eight-time National Chess Champion, coaches players to grasp the basic fundamentals of chess and to master the game through exciting courses and...
, was released on 30 October 2007 for PC (titled
Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition) and Nintendo DS (titled
Chessmaster: The Art of Learning), and 12 February 2008 for PlayStation Portable (also titled
Chessmaster: The Art of Learning). It includes numerous tutorials by International Master
Joshua WaitzkinJoshua Waitzkin is a chess player, martial arts competitor, and author. As a child he was recognized as a prodigy, and won the U.S. Junior Chess championship in 1993 and 1994....
for players of all skill levels.
Chess engine
The
Chessmaster chess engine is called The King, written by Johan de Koning of the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
. It was introduced in
Chessmaster 4000; earlier releases featured a chess engine written by David Kittinger.
According to the November 2007
Swedish Chess Computer AssociationThe Swedish Chess Computer Association is an organization that tests computer chess software by playing chess programs against one another and producing a rating list. On September 26, 2008, the list was released with Deep Rybka 3 leading with an estimated ELO rating of 3238. Rybka's listing in...
(SSDF) rating list,
Chessmaster 9000 has an estimated
Elo ratingThe Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess and Go. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
of 2710 on an
AthlonAthlon is the brand name applied to a series of different x86 processors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and, in a first, retained the initial performance lead it had over Intel's competing processors for a significant period of...
-1200 PC. If multiple versions of other engines are stripped out of their list,
Chessmaster 9000 ranks as the eleventh best. ,
Chessmaster 9000 remains the most recent version rated by the SSDF. Another rating list, CCRL, places Chessmaster 11th Edition in 23rd place on its September 2009 list.
The King engine allows users to create new playing styles, also called "personalities", by manipulating several dozen different settings, such as King Safety, Pawn Weakness, Randomness, Mobility and others. Individual piece values can also be adjusted.
Chessmaster 9000, for example, features over 150 different personalities ranging from
International GrandmasterThe title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from "World Champion", Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
strength down to Stanley, who is described as a monkey and plays what are essentially random moves.
The personality feature has inspired many amateur
computer chessComputer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess occurs as solo entertainment , as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human...
enthusiasts to attempt to find more optimum personalities. In
Chessmaster 10th Edition, the creation of new personalities has been made easier than before.
Chessmaster 9000 defeated then U.S. Chess Champion
International GrandmasterThe title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from "World Champion", Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
Larry ChristiansenLarry M. Christiansen is a chess Grandmaster who grew up in Riverside, California. He was U.S. champion in 1980, 1983, and 2002. He describes his playing style as "aggressive, tactical" and lists his favorite opening as the Sämisch King's Indian.Christiansen showed exceptional strength at an...
in a four-game match held in September 2002.
Chessmaster won the match 2.5-1.5. The
Chessmaster program was operated by John Merlino, the Project Manager of
Chessmaster at the time of the match. Four different personalities were used in the match, the first three of which were based on famous human Grandmasters:
Alexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
,
Bobby FischerRobert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Later in life he renounced his US citizenship and became an Icelandic citizen.Fischer's achievements are legendary...
, and
Mikhail BotvinnikMikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while playing top-class competitive chess...
. The final game of the match used the default "Chessmaster" personality. Christiansen won the first game, lost the second and third games, and the fourth game resulted in a draw.
Platforms
To date, various versions of
Chessmaster have appeared on
AmigaThe Amiga was a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985...
, Apple II,
Apple IIGSThe Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, is the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer...
,
Atari 8-bitThe Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips, giving them the most powerful graphics of any 8 bit computers of their time...
,
Atari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1985...
,
ZX SpectrumThe ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, the machine was launched as the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared with the...
,
Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January, 1982. Volume production started sometime in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$ 595...
,
DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
, PC, Mac,
Nintendo Entertainment SystemThe Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe and Australia in . In most of Asia, including Japan , China, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines, it was released as the , commonly abbreviated as the...
,
Super Nintendo Entertainment SystemThe Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
,
Game BoyThe is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America on , and in Europe on . In Southern Asia, it is known as the "Tata Game Boy" It is the first handheld console in the Game Boy line...
,
Game Boy ColorThe is Nintendo's successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27 1998 in UK. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than the Game Boy Pocket. As with the original Game...
,
Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color...
,
Nintendo DSThe is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in 2004 in Canada, the United States, and Japan. The console features a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP, with two LCD screens inside—with the bottom one being a touchscreen...
,
Sega Game GearThe is a handheld game console which was Sega's response to Nintendo's Game Boy. It was the third commercially available color handheld console, after the Atari Lynx and the TurboExpress....
,
PlayStationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
,
PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The PS2 console is the sequel to the original PlayStation console. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game...
, Microsoft Xbox, and mobile phones. Early Macintosh versions
Chessmaster 3000, 4000 and Multimedia were developed by Sebastian Rapport and Troy Heere that leveraged the Kittinger and de Koning engines respectively. Later Macintosh versions were ported by
Feral InteractiveFeral Interactive is a publishing company founded in 1996 that publishes games and other software that did not fit in with the release programs of the large established publishers. It publishes Macintosh games and has relationships with publishers such as Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive,...
, and the latest Macintosh version available is
Chessmaster 9000. Ubisoft also offers a downloadable version of the game: "
Chessmaster Challenge differs from
Chessmaster 10th Edition in its simplified interface, and scaled-down tutorials. It’s a non-retail product available for trial and purchase through download only."
Interface
The more recent editions of
Chessmaster include both 2D and 3D designs, and a large number of different boards and themed chess piece designs. The interface was revised for
Chessmaster 10th Edition and features animated 3D sets in which the pieces "walk" between squares and have simulated battles when a piece is taken, reminiscent of
Battle ChessBattle Chess is a computer game version of chess in which the chess pieces come to life and battle one another when capturing. It was released for the Commodore Amiga and subsequently on the 3DO, MS-DOS, Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, Amiga CDTV, CD32, Atari ST, Apple Macintosh, Acorn Archimedes, FM...
and the
Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter, together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his friends from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
Wizards chess set. (Previous editions also feature fully 3D sets but are not animated and the pieces do not battle.)
Chessmaster 10th Edition also comes packed with a pair of red and blue glasses to view the set in "enhanced 3D".
Xbox Live Arcade
An
Xbox Live ArcadeXbox Live Arcade is a term used to refer to a type of video game available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for Xbox 360...
version with
Xbox LiveXbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
multiplayer and Xbox Live Vision camera support for the
Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles....
called
Chessmaster Live was released on 30 January 2008 for 800
Microsoft PointsMicrosoft Points are the currency of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows - Live Marketplace, Windows Live Gallery and Zune online stores. The points allow users to purchase content without a credit card, and reduce the number of small credit card transaction fees which Microsoft would...
($10 USD).
This version of Chessmaster contained a bug allowing the white player to indefinitely hold up a match until a player resigned. The game was eventually patched so that neither player would gain or lose Elo points if they resign before the first move.
Reception
Critical reaction to the
Chessmaster series has been mostly positive.
GameSpotGameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which purchased...
commented that "
Chessmaster has remained the consummate standard in console chess games since the '80s."
IGNIGN is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses heavily on video games...
said that "the series itself remains the best way to play and learn about chess on the PC."
Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition, the most recent PC edition of the series, scored positive reviews, with
PC GamerPC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
saying: "this one-stop shop for an entire chess-playing and learning family should last until you're all grandmasters."
Chessmaster 10th Edition holds an 84% rating on review aggregator site
Game RankingsGameRankings is a website which keeps track of video game reviews from other sites, and combines them to present an average rating for each game. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games. The Ratings show the general critical opinion about a game; thus, Gamerankings has...
. IGN gave
Chessmaster 10th Edition a score of 8.4/10, calling it "the best chess game in town." GameSpot's review of
Chessmaster 10th Edition said, "If you're looking for a good chess program that's packed with a plethora of features and all the bells and whistles, you'll be very happy with
Chessmaster 10th Edition.
The mobile phone version of
Chessmaster received a score of 9/10 from IGN, who called it "an absolutely superlative product that will be enjoyed for week after week by fans of the mental contest." IGN criticized the Nintendo DS version of
Chessmaster: The Art of Learning for its lack of multiplayer, but gave it an overall positive review, with a score of 7.8/10. IGN criticized the "boring" presentation of the PlayStation Portable version of
Chessmaster: The Art of Learning, but added that "there's no doubt that the information is valuable and can teach you the finer points of the game."
Although the
Chessmaster chess engine is generally not as strong as the engines of other commercially-available chess programs such as
FritzFritz is a German chess program developed by Frans Morsch and Mathias Feist and published by ChessBase. There is also a version called Deep Fritz that is designed for multi-processing....
, critics have praised the
Chessmaster series for its comprehensive tutorials aimed at players of amateur and moderate skill levels. In its review of
Chessmaster 9000, IGN said that "the series has always distinguished itself with first-rate chess teaching tools," and welcomed the game's "appeal towards inexperienced and mid-level players. With all manner of tutorials, detailed analysis and exercises, the game helps ease newbies into the experience." GameSpot's review of
Chessmaster 10th Edition commented positively on the game's "huge bundle of features aimed at everyone from the neophyte who's looking to learn the basics to the advanced wood pusher who may need practice for tournament play."
A common criticism of the series has been the lack of new features in successive installments. IGN's review of
Chessmaster 10th Edition commented, "it simply doesn't add enough over any of the last two versions to make it a necessary upgrade."
Notable games
- Larry Christiansen
Larry M. Christiansen is a chess Grandmaster who grew up in Riverside, California. He was U.S. champion in 1980, 1983, and 2002. He describes his playing style as "aggressive, tactical" and lists his favorite opening as the Sämisch King's Indian.Christiansen showed exceptional strength at an...
vs. Chessmaster 9000 (September 2002), annotated at GameKnotGameKnot is an Internet chess server featuring correspondence chess tournaments and league play, along with Java single-player games, without the need to download additional software . GameKnot has been in business since 2001 and currently has approximately 900,000 registered players who have...
: