Chess

The best mobile app for chess lovers! only for Android mobiles, and with lots of possibilities:

Play against AI

  • Selectable ELO Levels to adjust playing strength, from 500 to 2100, on 50 ELO points steps
  • Selectable time per move: changing the ELO and the time per move, lots of difficulty levels can be selected
  • Opening book with more than 30.000 positions: ensures variated funny games
  • Can undo/redo all moves (you can also undo/redo moves by making a gesture from left to right/right to left on any unused part of the screen)
  • Send PGN by email: This way, you can analyze later your games on your PC
  • Graphical setup board, also can edit position’s FEN notation
  • On closing, saves the current game and it is loaded when the application is restarted

Play Online

  • Play on internet at freechess.org (FICS) or at chessclub.com (ICC)
  • Play as guest or as a registered user (on ICC only as registered user)
  • Seek/offer match rated and unrated
  • View seeks posted by other users. Can sort seek list by username, rating or game time
  • Takeback, draw, abort, resign and rematch options when playing
  • Console to see server output and to send commands, also for chatting with other users
  • Play, Finger and Observe, can also observe LectureBot on FICS or play ProblemBot/TrainingBot on ICC
  • Examine games (works with puzzlebot or the “exl” command to examine your last played game)
  • Timeseal (FICS) and Timestamp (ICC): avoids lag problems
  • Option to confirm moves before sending to the server. Forward and Backward buttons are converted on Confirm/Cancel buttons

Chess Problems

  • 2900+ chess problems to solve looking for the best moves: problems collected by Uwe Auerswald, from Germany
  • Selectable problem difficult (Easy, Medium and Hard Problems)

And with the Best Interface

  • Clean, simple and intuitive interface (options appear after pressing the “MENU” key)
  • Move by dragging and dropping the piece with useful guide lines
  • Also move by tapping the origin and the destiny squares or with the trackball
  • Portrait and Landscape mode
  • Shows legal moves (as yellow traslucid squares)
  • Highlights last move (with a yellow arrow) (may be disabled with a settings option), also move hints (as a green arrow) after a request in the menu
  • Four piece sets (Merida, Leipzig, Berlin and Staunton) and five board styles (Blue, Brown, Gray, Marble and Wood)
  • Shows a dot on the side to move (the point is of the moving side color) and can show board coordinates
  • Shows captured pieces advantage for each one of the sides (as an example if black captured 3 pawns and whites 2, it shows an advantage of 1 white pawn for blacks)
  • Speak moves, checks and game results
  • Different sounds for moves, captures and checks, also vibration
  • Option to keep the screen on when playing

It is on sale at the Android Market by only 1.99 EUR.

There is also a free version “Mobialia Chess LITE” with the following limitations:

  • Only the highest ELO level (2100)
  • Only the “1 second per move” level
  • Play on FICS only as guest (ICC supported only on the paid version)
  • Supported by Ads

It’s proudly powered by our Open Source Chess Engine Carballo, so any comments about its gameplay will be welcome.

Support

Please send to chess@mobialia.com all the comments, bugs and feature request.

If you’re having problems with downloads, installs, refunds, payments, or Android Market access, please contact the Android Market team through the Android Market Help Center and user forum.

History

  • Version 3.1.1: Urgent release to solve a setup board bug after last update. Sorry!
  • Version 3.1: Solving some bugs and adding minor features:
    • Different sounds for captures and check notification
    • Option to save the PGN files on the SD card
    • Bug: The PGN generated was not compliant with PGN rules
    • Less difficult levels, starting from ELO 500
    • Bug: Saving game state when playing against Android
    • Bug: Finger window when playing on FICS was not showing after the last update
    • New direct menu options to observe highest rated games & LectureBot on FICS and to play TrainingBot and ProblemBot on ICC
    • New settings option to disable pop-up chat windows when playing or observing online
    • Unified Chat dialogs (on only one window) & First chat message of bots not showed
    • Console was not refreshing after reconnect
    • Added Market license verification when playing online. Due to piracy, we are forced to add this. Now SlideMe.org will be not used anymore for distribution.
    • New intro screen
  • Version 3.0: The new 3.x series start with the support for ICC, and many other improvements:
    • Support to play online on chessclub.com (ICC) with all the options already avaiable on FICS (timestamp, observe, examine, etc.)
    • New engine Carballo 0.5, 150 ELO points stronger than the previous version
    • Selectable ELO level for the engine from 1000 to 2100 ELO points in 50 points ELO steps
    • Graphical setup board
    • Solves a draw by threefold repetition detection bug
    • When choosing to play a problem on “play vs android”, marks the “alternate” option on the Opponent setting to play the puzzle with the winning color
    • Option to disable the arrow showing the last move
    • Solved bug rotating 270 degrees on Android 2.2
    • Solved a problem with the gin variable on FICS: now is set to 0 on connecting
    • And other minor bugs…
  • Version 2.9: Ending the 2.x series, trying to solve remaining bugs and adding some minor features:
    • Now you can move the app to your SD card on Android 2.2
    • New clocks code, when screen gets blank or other activity start, clocks continue to run in background
    • Added 3 and 7 seconds move time when playing vs Android
    • Solved force close when setting an incorrect FEN
    • Removed the black square on d5 when starting a new game or a new chess problem

    Chess Problems

    • Problem summary to be a toast
    • Included a new menu option on problems “Play Position” to move the current position to the “Play vs Android” board

    Online Play

    • Now you can examinate games (i.e. for puzzlebot or with the “exl” command)
    • Adjudicate game when clock reaches 0 (autoflag)
    • Seek dialog now remembers the last seek from the last time
    • Sometimes, playing on fics with black, the board does not autorotate: changed the method used to rotate
    • While in view seeks->console, if status changed to playing, go to the board OK
    • Solved some FCs with NullPointerException
  • Version 2.8: A big effort to solve all bugs and include petitions from users:
    • Auto-flip board when playing human vs human
    • BUG: Clock fails in human vs human mode
    • BUG: Do not show promotion dialog if invalid move
    • Allows to pick up pinned pieces or any of your pieces that can’t move, but when dropping set the move as invalid
    • Background issues: removed background

    Online play:

    • List of pending offers
    • Reconnect button also when playing
    • Chat in tabbed console, also supports receiving kibitzes
    • User finger
    • New checkbox option in the settings “Confirm Moves”. When checked asks confirmation for each move (the forward and backward buttons change into a confirm/cancel buttons)
    • Observe games. Can also observe LectureBot
    • Timeseal option now enabled by default
    • Seek list sorting configurable by a settings option: by username/by rating/by game time
    • Seek list shows when a seek is set to manual accept
    • Seek list styling
    • BUG: Seek list now distinguish between computer, guest, titled, and registered
    • Console: word wrap
    • Console: don’t show seeks
  • Version 2.7: New features:
    • Setting to turn off the display sleep timer when using the app
    • Dialog to ask for promotion piece

    Online Play

    • Timeseal (avoids lag problems)
    • Removed unregistered title
    • Continuous gc after closing fics connection (draining battery)
    • Seek Dialog: manual accept, ratings range and use stored formula options
  • Version 2.6.1: Version 2.6 had a bug involving forward gesture detection: tapping on any part of the screen was interpreted as forward.
  • Version 2.6: Lots of changes, many thanks to all the people who contributed with their ideas (some remain for the next version):
    • On screen backward and forward buttons. Undo removed from menus. Now you can also redo moves in offline and problems
    • Captured pieces in portrait mode moved up to fit buttons
    • Sound as an option in preferences

    Online Play

    • Seek list is now refreshed each 5 seconds, makes easier to select a mach offer
    • FICS console should now stays at the end of the buffer when moved to the end
    • Now shows player titles (unregistered, computer, GM, etc)
    • Confirmation to abort/resign the match when pressing back
    • Takeback option, asks in a dialog if you are going to takeback a half-move or a complete move
    • If you are checkmated the notification completely obscures the chess board, now you can show the board again with a new button

    Chess Problems

    • Option in Settings to not auto-play problems when best move found, now lets you go investigating move by move

    Bugs Solved

    • Send PGN by email failed on some mobiles. Now saves a mobialia_chess.pgn in the root of the sd card before sending it
    • Online play en passant not working
    • FICS reconect failed sometimes
    • FICS Console failed with an OutOfMemory error
    • Solved FICS Check after leaving check and duplicated notifications
  • Version 2.5: Renamed from Carballo Chess. Improvements on FICS play: new match offer, rated/unrated on lists and seek/match offers (disabled for guest), draw and abort offers when playing…
February 25th, 2010