Best Chess Games: Beyond the Default Board

Chess is 1500 years old and somehow still the most perfectly designed game ever made. Every year someone tries to "improve" chess by adding new pieces or mechanics, and every year those attempts die while vanilla chess keeps dominating. But there are genuinely great chess video games, and some of the most creative indie games use chess as inspiration for new genres entirely.

Here's what's actually worth your time — whether you want pure chess with modern features, chess-inspired indie innovation, or chess alternatives that capture the strategic depth.

The best pure chess apps

Chess.com is the king of online chess platforms. Millions of players. Puzzles. Lessons. Tournaments. Variants (chess960, bughouse, atomic). If you're serious about chess as a game, this is your home.

Lichess is the free, open-source alternative. Many players prefer it for no ads, better variant support, and principled "chess as a public good" ethics. The two platforms share most features; pick based on which community you prefer.

Chessmaster (the classic series) is more PC-based and focuses on teaching. Older now but still excellent for learning.

Tabletop Simulator has chess available among dozens of other classic games. Less focused chess app but great if you want to play with friends in voice chat.

The chess-inspired roguelikes

Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate is a masterclass in "what if chess was also a roguelike?" You play as a chess king with a shotgun, fighting waves of chess enemies. Absurd concept, brilliant execution.

Chessplosion is party-game chess with explosions. Multiple game modes, fast-paced, fun with friends.

The strategy games that learned from chess

Into the Breach is puzzle-strategy from the FTL developers. Small grid, mech combat, every turn requires perfect planning. Chess-adjacent in that every piece movement has massive consequences.

Advance Wars and its spiritual successor Wargroove are turn-based strategy games descended from chess's grid combat ancestry.

Fire Emblem series is turn-based tactics built on chess-like logic. The best tactics games post has more.

The chess variants worth playing

Chess960 (Fischer Random): Starting positions are randomized. Memorization of openings becomes useless. Pure strategy matters. Available on Chess.com and Lichess.

Bughouse: Team chess where captured pieces pass to your partner. Chaotic and fun. Best with voice chat.

Atomic Chess: Captures trigger explosions, removing all adjacent pieces. Changes strategy completely.

Crazyhouse: Captured pieces can be "dropped" back onto the board as your own. Tactical insanity.

Three-check Chess: First player to check three times wins. Different mindset from normal chess.

All available on Chess.com and Lichess.

The chess-themed indie games

The Queen's Gambit — a Netflix show, not a game, but worth mentioning because it drove the 2020-2021 chess boom that brought millions of new players.

Chess Ultra is a polished modern chess game with gorgeous boards and VR support. If you want premium chess experience, this delivers.

Pure Chess is similar — photorealistic boards and decent AI. More stylish than Chess.com's web interface.

The Chess Variants Club is a free collection of hundreds of chess variants. Not a video game per se but essential for variant enthusiasts.

The deckbuilder/chess hybrids

Clash of Magic combines chess-style movement with card-based unit spawning.

Hoplite is a chess-inspired single-player tactical puzzle game on mobile. Minimalist but deep.

Into the Stars — not chess but tactical space combat that borrows chess design sensibilities.

The classics and puzzles

Puzzle Rush on Chess.com — timed puzzle mode. Addictive and genuinely improves your pattern recognition.

Endgame studies — complete chess games where you must find the unique winning move. Chess-focused apps have databases of famous endgame compositions.

Daily puzzles — both Chess.com and Lichess have daily puzzles. Great 2-minute warmup before actual games.

The chess learning resources

If you're not trying to just play chess but actually get better:

Lichess Studies (free) — user-made courses on openings, strategies, and tactics.

Chess.com Lessons (paid subscription) — structured courses from beginner to expert.

Chessable — flashcard-based chess training, particularly for opening repertoires.

ChessMood and ChessNetwork on YouTube are free. Hikaru Nakamura's streams are educational and entertaining.

The AI chess engines

Stockfish is the strongest chess engine ever made and it's free. Plays at levels beyond human comprehension.

Leela Chess Zero is a neural network engine that sometimes makes startlingly creative moves.

AlphaZero (DeepMind's engine) essentially taught itself chess in 4 hours from self-play and became world-class. Not freely available but worth reading about.

Most online chess platforms include engine analysis after games. Use this. Reviewing your games with engine feedback is the single best way to improve.

The chess as art

Chess Stories — memorable games from history. Fischer-Spassky 1972. Kasparov-Karpov matches. Carlsen-Caruana. These are dramas told through chess boards.

The films The Queen's Gambit and Searching for Bobby Fischer show chess as narrative art.

The Wire: Chess Scene (from the HBO show) is one of the best explanations of chess-as-sociology ever filmed.

What we make at Choost

We don't make chess games — the strategic design space has 1500 years of development behind it and we wouldn't compete with that seriously. But we respect chess's timeless design. Granny's Gambit is our take on strategic card-based combat, which shares some abstract similarity to chess's "plan several moves ahead" thinking. For more strategy content, the best turn based strategy games and best tactics games posts have more.

The short answer

For pure chess: Chess.com or Lichess.

For chess-themed indie gem: Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate.

For chess-adjacent tactics: Into the Breach.

For variants: Chess960 or Crazyhouse on Lichess.

For learning: Lichess Studies (free) or Chessable.

For chess drama: Follow the World Championship events.

Chess isn't going anywhere. It's been 1500 years and we're still finding new things in it. Whether you play at a beginner's level or grandmaster level, the game meets you where you are and gives you endless depth to explore.