Dinosaur Chess - Learn to Play! App Reviews

My kids like to play this game. But there are two problems. The first, there are four sessions: learn, play, progress, dino fight. Once we choose one session, we cant go back to the main page to choose another session. Especially one we play chess, after win or loose the game, we cant play another one. Always need to quit the application and open again. Another problem Dino fight doesnt work well, we almost cant see the bubbles in the screen.

Great intro for children to the pieces of chess, their abilities, and value. Doesnt go much beyond that besides three or four basic strategy pointers. Levels of difficulty for play are accomplished by limiting pieces rather than the computers best move formula. Only dislike is that my childs screen is 1024x768 and on that resolution the menu options overlap the board so when trying to select certain corner squares (especially the upper left) one ends up navigating the menus rather than selecting the square. If that were to be fixed Id give it an extra star.

It was crashing on the lessons, but when in the Play section it crashes every time mid-game. Too bad because it is a nice intro to chess for my 9 year old son. Id give it a 4 or 5 if not for the crashes. Im on OS 10.6.6 so that should be recent enough. Waiting for an update to fix the problem.

My kids absolutely love this game. It makes chess so easy to learn, lesson by lesson. The graphics are adorable. Unfortunately, the app keeps crashing. I hope they will come up with a solution.

My son (8 yrs old) really likes this game, so would have given it 5 stars had it not been for the display issues. It seems to display too large on the screen, which causes buttons such as "replay" to not be visible. We actually have to shut the game down and start it up again to play a new game. I do not seem to have this problem with any of my other Mac programs, so I would not think that it is a monitor or display setting issue. If the resolution does require that display settings be changed, then I would consider this to be a shortcoming. Not worth my time to change a display setting everytime I want to play a game. That said, it is a testimony to how good it is that we would even bother with the display issues to play it. It is a fun way to get a kid engaged in chess.

First of all, its buggy and doesnt work with all resolutions and some buttons are impossible to click unless you mess with your resolution. Im sure theyll improve that. Also sometimes it doesnt close, or it crashes, etc. But I expect that to improve. The concept is good and fun and kids really like it. I wish they would add a few features, more training puzzles, more lectures, etc, but its definitely great if you have a child that you wish to teach, and its probably good for adults as well. I honestly should have given it 2-3 stars because of the technical issues and then the 4/5 if it worked as its supposed to. Add some features and keep it working perfectly and then 5 stars is fair.

My 5 year old loves the lessons and the game, but she is unable to exit from a game without closing the program and restarting due to display issues. There is no main menu or close option displayed on the screen of my Macbook regardless of what screen resolution I use. I loaded the program on a desktop computer and it appears that the close option is just outside the display range of the Macbook. I would easily give 5 stars if the display issues were corrected.

I bought this game for my 5 year old to satisfy his interest in Chess, but the gameplay is way too difficult! I cant make the AI easier, only decrease the amount of game pieces on the game board - with still the same difficulty. He got discouraged and so did I. The game illustration is also so large; I am assuming it is cutting off the exit button? because I cannot exit to the main menu, only force quit and re-open. I give this game 3 stars, however, because the graphics, sound, and lessons are stimulating to my son... please fix the buttons and add an eaiser AI option and Ill update to 5 stars. Thank You

Pros 1, This game will teach you how to play even if you never played . 2, Works with Lion. 3, great 4 kids. Con It needs more than one board for the 6 levels.

This app is fantastic and well worth the money. I dont know why others cant click the buttons on the game, maybe they are using lower resolution MacBooks?

It doesnt deserve 4.5 stars which was a factor in me buying it. Its sloppy performance is embarassing on my macbook air mountain lion. Display problems need fixed.

Very glad I purchased this for my kids. This was a good way to start them playing chess. If your child knows how to play chess, Im not sure this is the game you want to purchase. The reason I say this is that the full game could have a bit of an easier option. I can say Ive seen no display problems on the iMac.

My daughter LOVES this tutorial; its educational and fun. But it keeps crashing at the same point (Learning about Kings) and she cant progresss any farther than that. Also, when it crashes on a lesson, you have to do the lesson ALL OVER AGAIN. Please fix this, youre making my daughter cry. -1 star for the crashing. Other than that, 5 stars.

I can tell that the producers of this app put a lot of time into developing the content. Honestly a lot of the game is really fun and kept my 6 year olds attention. But little details are so buggy that it makes this game unplayable. For example, when doing the training it is literally impossible to move from one level to the next… you have to go back, exit to the main menu and then click on the next level. And when you click on the buttons you need to make sure that you are clicking right in the middle of the button because if you are on the sides, but within the circle, it doesnt register. So frustrating to see that all the effort is down the drain due to such tiny little bugs. All it would take is a few hours of time by a good programmer to make this a great app.