Chess With Friends – A Joint WOiP/JAiB Review

My buddy Patrick (of Just Another iPhone Blog) and I played some chess this afternoon. Thing is, Patrick is down in Texas and I’m in NJ. Using only our iPhones over WiFi I suffered a humiliating defeat. (He’s a ringer I tell ya!) Here’s our joint WOiP-JAiB review. Patrick is in standard print, I’m in bold)

Among the coolest aspects of the iPhone and its interconnectivity is the ability to remotely network with anyone anywhere in the world over WiFi or three G.  Although we both are iPhone users for well over a year,this was one of the first tests of it.

Very true on that coolest aspects part – it’s very, very  satisfying to strike up a game this way, with an absolute minimum of setup or fuss to get it going. 

The first step was for both of us both to install the Chess With Friends app and create accounts. Once we’d done that, Patrick sent Dan an invitation to join a game. One screen later and the game was on! (Unfortunate but necessary disclaimer — when it comes to chess both of us suck. As a result, from a chess perspective this was an excellent example of the blind leading the blind.)

Amen to that.  I like some games because I’m good at them (can’t think of any right now, but I feel sure there are some).  Then there are games that I am very bad at, that I suck at, but somehow I enjoy the heck out of them. 

Despite the utter lack of chess skills in action, the fact that we could not only play against each other even though we’re numerous states apart, but we could play in real time and it really worked was superb!

Patrick would make a move, tap "submit" and it was Dan’s turn. Dan would make his move, tap "submit" and it was Patrick’s move. (All the while both of us were hoping that there was no one else watching us play because it was a sad sorry sight indeed.)

I like that as soon as you tap to select a piece, the app shows you (by highlighting squares) where all the legal moves for that piece are.  It also shows you a cartoony set of eyes at the top of the board to let you know when your opponent is looking at the board.

If you don’t yet have any friends that want to take you on at Chess With Friends, or none are around when you want to play, the app will find you a random opponent out there somewhere in internet land, lickity split.   More often than not it instantly finds me a game when I try this route.  You can also play multiple games at once (which is great for when you get involved in one game where the other player is a real slow-poke on making their moves), and the app’s home screen provides a simple, clear view of all your current games and whether it is currently your move or theirs.

There were two major issues that emerged from our first ( of many hopefully) games — the first is that Dan absolutely sucks at chess. Patrick may not be good but Dan’s far, far worse. The second is that it needs a good chat program as part of it. More than once we wanted to converse with each other but had to actually turn back to our laptops and e-mail. It would’ve been far easier and more fun if we been able to chat with each other from within the app itself.

Yup – chat component is a must for a future update.  I’ve also found when playing a random opponent who I don’t know (and hence certainly can’t send them an email as I can with Dan),  that chat would be super useful – as I’ve had a couple opponents who start a game and then bugger off, and I end up waiting round a fair number of minutes to see if they’re going to come back.  Oh, and it should also be noted that I bested Dan while he was doped to the nines on painkillers after recent surgery.  Next I’d like to play poker against him with a marked deck and after teaching my daughter to count cards 🙂 

The bottom line of the application is this — between the iPhone’s powerful interface and its ability to connect to another iPhone anywhere in the world, you no longer need to be in the same room as someone sitting in front of a computer screen to work on a project jointly, to share documents, or even to play chess — it’s nothing short of awesome! Best of all, it’s free.

And playing against drugged up opposition is nothing short of even more awesome! (Yeah, I didn’t think that was nice either.) 

Chess With Friends is available HERE in the App Store.

  UPDATE: The bad news, I’m about to get wooped again. The good news- Patrick started following the devs who make Chess With Friends on Twitter, and saw an update of theirs that mentions that the next version, 1.1, will have built in chat.  Excellent!!