Quantum Chess

Does not seem to have a option to play against the pc. Its pretty but i just want the ability to play a local game against the pc

Completely changes the strategies of chess without changing the strategies of chess. I really like games that change the way I'm thinking about a problem, and this game does that.

My one critique is that there's not a good one player mode. I can't wait until it gets a good CPU opponent is made, but I understand the development of that kind of AI is hard, about as hard as making the first good chess AIs in the 1990s.

An interesting combination of the strategy of chess with quantum mechanical effects, in addition to adding a probabilistic element into the game, one can also explore effects of interference and entanglement, and I can't wait to see what strange & wonderful strategies chess players more expert than me will develop based on this game's unique and fascinating mechanics.

DO NOT buy this game.
I bought this game when it was first released and even back then it had some issues but was playable and enjoyable.
Almost 4 years has passed since I last played it and sadly it is worse now.


SINGLEPLAYER
-It practically has no singleplayer. It used to have an AI but it was very underdeveloped. They currently removed the singleplayer match and added "puzzles" which are not interesting at all. (And most people probably won't be able to solve them since they have no actual explanation about the current mechanics.) A chess game with no VS Computer, I mean really?

MULTIPLAYER
-There is almost no multiplayer community. There are official and unofficial discord channels but nobody really plays it. So unless you already have a friend to play, multiplayer is pretty much useless.

QUANTUM MECHANICS
-They have changed both the design and the quantum mechanics of the game over time and it's not clear how they work. It used to have bunch of tutorials and how to play. Now they removed all of it and there is just some minimal information about how the mechanics work. (Which doesn't help at all.) Even if you google it and try to find some kind of guide/instruction all you can find is about the old version of the game, so they are pretty much useless.


VERDICT
This game used to be an okay but fun game, sadly right now I don't think that it's even playable.
I strictly don't recommend this game unless it gets some major updates.

This game is fantastic. As stated by the creator, the intention was not to recreate or improve chess, which doesn't need improved or made more complicated. Rather, the goal was to find a relatable use case into which quantum effects could be incorporated, to enable people to understand them by interacting with them in a meaningful way. Quantum Chess succeeds both on that front, and as a game in its own right.

As a casual chess player, the quantum effects actually make chess more interesting for me. That doesn't take anything away from normal chess, nor does it need to. It's simply a variation of chess that is very well implemented, fun to play and watch, and enables intriguing new strategies to learn, discuss, and perfect.

My biggest complaint here is the learning curve. I love and study quantum mechanics for other reasons and in other areas, so I didn't find the quantum concepts difficult to learn personally. However, I feel that anyone who isn't normally interested in quantum mechanics (most of the intended player base of this game, based on the creator's own words) would not find the same to be true. This newest update improves on a lot of these issues, including making the terminology and the quantum rules easier to grasp and understand. However, if you're looking for a game that's easy to pick up, or you are a little fuzzy on chess to begin with, you may want to start with something a bit easier.

The AI opponent was apparently a sore point for some people (with the older version), and that has also been greatly improved.

Overall, I feel quantum chess is a solid new entry, perhaps not in the chess world (which, again, it wasn't intended to be), but certainly for video games, board games, and especially quantum games. Up until now I wouldn't say I knew of a single quantum game, at least not one more interesting than pong. I believe we have our first official quantum game. And if there was any doubt, this game actually runs a full quantum simulation under the hood. In fact, it's so legit that the quantum simulation can be run on real quantum hardware, although it's a little disheartening to wait 10 seconds between every move, and to see your knight split into less than a combined 100% superposition (due to quantum error correction not being perfect yet). Where did the rest of my knight go? It disappeared into the quantum realm, apparently.

Even then - what an adventure! Great fun. If anything, quantum chess got me more interested in chess than I was already.

I bought the game to support the idea behind it. I believe is wonderful to use one of the most difficult concepts in physics to grasp in a chess game where it will become familiar. However, I am unable to play at all as I am not allowed to play with other players. MULTIPLAYER IS NOT AVAILABLE. You can only play against people you would know to have the game so you can share with them the room-code so they can join the the match. Thus I will not have to dedicate to recruit friends to play, cause I am not able to play except against myself.

First of all: this is one of the best chess games i have ever played, it combines quantum physics with basic chess and thats very fun if you know how to implement quantum moves. It shows how strange quantum physics really is and the concept is easy to understand through the game. Even though there is a discord server its sometimes hard to find an opponent but the AI (regular version) isnt too bad. This game is still in early access and it is by far not perfect but here are some suggestions:

• i think there should be a rule to force players to use quantum moves, as of now you can play a whole match without using a single quantum move and i think thats not the point of the game.
  
[*]in the beta version there is no possibilty to perform a superposition (aka quantum move) between the original square and any other square, u can select two squares but not the origin, in my opinion thats a huge disadvantage.

ALL IN ALL A GREAT GAME WITH BIG POTENTIAL

i was really looking forward for this game, i still am, but if in 4 years it hasnt been updated it will never blow up as this should, im pretty sure more people would buy this if you could notice developers cared, it doesnt seem that way

the AI is awful, online player-vs-player is non-existent; you're basically paying £7 to play normal chess against a 1000 rated player.

The game has potential and has a very creative idea behind it, but it's not worth the £7. Worth reconsidering after a LOT of updates.

2021 update:
Just played the game again after the updates. It worked very well and was able to play with an opponent. The new superposition moves make more sense and the merge function is interesting. The developer has been working hard at this and I hope the gaming and quantum community will support him.


2019 Review:
I cannot praise this game enough. The concept and the probabilities introduced to chess make it very interesting. It makes one have to think through not only the strategy in chess, but in the probabilities as they stack up with quantum moves. It allows one to split a piece into many probabilistic pieces where it is not certain which piece wins or dies. Outstanding implementation by the developer.

My only suggestion for the developer is to work on the online game to make sure it doesn't keep crashing. I have not been able to play the online game from beginning to end without one of the players disconnecting. Keep up the effort. Thanks.

The ideas behind this are definitely cute and worthy of exploration. But the product isn't it.

First, the AI is so bad you can consistently win in 6 moves. Try it. 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3.Bf1 Nf4 4. Qf3 Ng6 5. Bxf7 Kxf7 6. Qxf7 1-0.

This is a combination of:

1. The AI is really, really bad. Maybe 800 Elo or something.
2. The AI (apparently) always does the same move in a given situation, no randomization (which is kind of ironic in a game about probabilities).
3. The AI never does quantum moves.

So playing against the computer is pointless. Playing against people is also nearly impossible. So that leaves academic exploration of the game mechanics, but this also falls short because there's very little information about how the mechanics actually work. I've went through the tutorial and some online materials; and while the basic ideas are clear, I've seen some behavior I can't explain, and there's no technical reference I can use to determine if my logic is wrong, or there is a bug in the engine.

This relates to the point that I've seen the designer claim that there's a complex (the a+bi kind) inner representation of the state, but I've seen no technical specification to back this, so it seems like a marketing gimmick.

As it currently stands, it can be a nice free demo. But if they're charging money, I expect these two issues to be resolved - a decent AI, and more information on mechanics.

As someone who has an obsession of quantum mechanics, this game is amazing. The only downsides are that it is still in alpha and has some bugs, but it is definately worth the ten dollars. More people should buy this game to fill up the servers and give the developers more incentive to get it out faster.

I could give this game a 10/10 or a 9/10 for a few bugs. Let’s decide with a particles spin. Now it’s in a superposition of alive and dead
Particle observation
10/10 would half kill king again

DEEP IN THE QUANTUM RABBIT HOLE:
It has PHASE and follows the actual math of QM. Moves (both classical moves (Cm's) and quantum moves (Qm's)) apply quantum gates involving 2 or more squares, and collapse happens whenever two different type and/or color appear on the same square. Collapse is random in accordance to the laws of QM and so introduces luck into the game, with the addition that capturing Cm's remove the wave amplitude in the destination square off the board (Qm's can't be used to capture).

We are allowed to make moves for e.g. a Knight where is some amount of Knight at the origin square and the destination is within 1 (Cm) or 2 (Qm) Knight moves away. Cm's apply the NOT gate while Qm's apply the sqrt(NOT) gate. Every piece except unprompted pawns can make Qm moves, and even pawns can get involved in the fray when they i.e. capture half of a rook's wavefunction.

How does phase matter? Consider white knight moves from B1 to C3. White doing the Qm version of this move twice is applying sqrt(NOT) twice, which is the same as applying NOT (a classical move). However, if white moves Qm, Cm, Qm, the Cm move (which will not appear to have done anything when it is done this way) means our total gate equivalent to applying the NOT gate 1/2+1+1/2 = 2 times, i.e. doing nothing at all. Thus a move that seems to do nothing (the intermediate Cm) actually had an effect. In a real game, more complex phase phenomena show up.

When there part of a piece in the way (and only one path from A to B) we apply a CNOT gate for a classical move, which means that the ordinary NOT gate is "controlled" by the absence/presence of the blocking piece. If there are multiple paths through blocking pieces, multiple other pieces can get involved. Handling all of this complex and intuition is built gradually, mastery is hard but possible. In general the game favors parsimonious rules over what a human would expect.

And by the way, two of the same piece/color combination are identical particles (spin 1/2 fermions).

BRING A FRIEND:
Overall the game plays well. It has a balance of obvious and deeper strategy and tactics with luck thrown in (whenever a collapse happens). There is no easy trick to force a draw, etc (no, splitting the king over and over again won't work. The opponent can capture most of your king, split his pieces to fill all vacant squares, and mop up your remaining sliver of king).

The graphics are pretty (don't use the 3D view). Two main downsides: I don't think there are enough people for reliable online play yet; there is no AI to speak of (it is horrible and it will be much harder then chess to develop a good AI). However, this game makes a good cofeeshop topic with a friend. And the fact that developing an AI will (I think) be so hard means we can hone a skill that is both fun and beyond what machines can do, a claim few board games have.

The offline AI is the only predictable aspect of this game, everything else about it is mind-blowing from the first time you try to make sense of the game, to the first time you beat someone with your reality bending strategy. This game takes a genius spin on the age-old game of chess which not only requires an even greater sense of logic to comprehend, but also a great deal of luck. The initial reaction (including your own) of each person you demonstrate this game to is worth $10 on its own, but beating a masterful chess player through mind tricks and sheer luck is priceless. That being said, I encourage anyone reading this to buy this game and fill the online servers so that I have someone to play with after all my friends' brains explode!

This game is awesome and the concept itself is awesome.
I only have 2 problems with the game right now:

1: The AI is way too easy to beat since it doesn't understand how quantum moves work
2: Online play seems to be down as all servers are displayed as Offline (probably be online after the actual release)

All in all it's a great game to play with others

Alright: the concept is good and this makes chess super exciting.
Now recommendations:
- the way the pieces look its weird, so weird i have problems figuring out my position, i confuse pawns with bishops, etc. It would be a lot better if they would look more like regular chess pieces.
-the pieces take a lot of time to move, and it is programmed to work that way. it is good to keep the tension but for a time addict like me (I like to play blitz and bullet chess games, or said another way very short timed chess games) this concept is really boring, i would like the display of the change in percentage to move faster.

Do not expect to play with te AI a serious game, it's horribly bad, it poses no challenge at all for a chess player over 1300 rating. It is rather funny, but as tutorial is good. Also real tutorial could have more important info and less useless conversation about how hard the game it is, of course it is gonna be hard if you, the tutorial spend 99% of your time just telling me that instead of explaining me the game. The tutorial is an irony of bad high school teacher.

It is an interesting idea. However, there is no actual way to play it. Also, almost no information is not displayed to the user (entanglement, phases, etc.).

Great game... of regular old fashioned chess. As of now if you play against AI the chess game is rather normal. As of yet I haven't seen the AI use and quantum moves which makes the games rather repetitive. As of now I give this game a thumbs down, however i see the potential this game has and look forward to the full release.

This game is really more of an interface for a playable chess variant. Most human players 0<1400 should find the AI to play as a tutorial. However, if you like chess in general then the addition of a "quantum" game mechanic delivers something new in a way that seems easy to learn and difficult to master.


The parametrics of Quantum chess make it an ambitious next step in the way chess could be played. I really can't wait for an update that improves the playing strength of the AI. Especially because a program that could more fully realize some of the possibilities available in QC might also function in a chess meta-game.