Magnus Kingdom of Chess

★★★★★ My 4 and 5 year old both learned to play chess almost entirely from this game, and they've started enjoying playing each other. It's wonderfully creative at how it teaches kids nonverbally, and the kids had hours of fun and learning with very little parental help. They now ask to play chess whenever they get a chance.

★★★★★ My 4yo enjoyed it a lot and was grasping concepts like 'safe square' and to attack pawns from behind/go for the base of the pawn chain by level 2. She needed a little help to play. The 'catch an animal' (find a checkmate) 'battles' put her off, so she didn't progress past level 2, choosing instead to start from the beginning repeatedly. It is less intuitive than other Dragonbox apps and progress is a bit fast. The concept of check/checkmate could do with more 'learning'. Sad: checkmated king/animal is captured... needs to be un-learned for 'real' chess! Also, pieces will move (in general direction) if tapping randomly which gives false impression of no need for precision. My 8yo plays chess already so was interested to see what he'd make of it. Despite 'knowing' everything the game aims to teach, he was lured in and greatly enjoyed playing. I'd wager that he has been improving his feeling for how the pieces work together. However beyond that it won't improve his chess and he will likely complete the app within a few days. Overall a dream combination to bring Dragonbox to chess; but being aimed at pure beginners some concepts could do with being introduced more explicitly.

★★☆☆☆ Is that all? My 6 year old finished this app in a week. He loved it, but is really disappointed. Plus, it seems like there are a lot of cards that he didn't earn while playing, so it seems like there are still things for him to learn. Given how extensive the other dragonbox games are, I'm disappointed as well. I've been using them for years with his older brother, and have always been impressed. I was impressed at the start of using this app, but I probably wouldn't have bought it if I knew it wasn't going to be something that he could use for more than a week.

★★☆☆☆ de cacat