The official website of Majestic Chess has just gone live, and there is a free
demo that you can download which gives you the ability to play online free as a
guest on our servers as much as you want. The demo also has one of the eight
chapters from the Chess Adventure.

Just go to www.majesticchess.com. The demo download is about 62MB.

jm

"Mr. B" wrote in message ...
John Merlino wrote:

The official website of Majestic Chess has just gone live, and there is a
free demo that you can download which gives you the ability to play online
free as a guest on our servers as much as you want. The demo also has one
of the eight chapters from the Chess Adventure.

Just go to www.majesticchess.com. The demo download is about 62MB.

jm
Download? Phooey, John! I'm buying the blessed thing right now. It looks
quite intriguing! If past history is any indication, my wife will likely
start looking over my shoulder and try to solve the puzzles for me.

Bryan

No complaints here, of course! :-)

But as one user to another, I would ALWAYS get the demo first, if for
no other reason than to determine if there are going to be any
hardware problems.

Many thanks for your vote of confidence,

jm

Hi John:

Are you involved in the development of this?

Regards,

nm


"John Merlino" wrote in message
om...
"Mr. B" wrote in message
...
John Merlino wrote:

The official website of Majestic Chess has just gone live, and there
is a
free demo that you can download which gives you the ability to play
online
free as a guest on our servers as much as you want. The demo also has
one
of the eight chapters from the Chess Adventure.

Just go to www.majesticchess.com. The demo download is about 62MB.

jm
Download? Phooey, John! I'm buying the blessed thing right now. It
looks
quite intriguing! If past history is any indication, my wife will
likely
start looking over my shoulder and try to solve the puzzles for me.

Bryan

No complaints here, of course! :-)

But as one user to another, I would ALWAYS get the demo first, if for
no other reason than to determine if there are going to be any
hardware problems.

Many thanks for your vote of confidence,

jm

As far as the real program and not the demo is concerned:

Does it always require the CD to run?

Can it analyze games?

Is there any dtabase functionality?

nm


"John Merlino" wrote in message
m...
"Anon Anonymous" wrote in message
...
Hi John:

Are you involved in the development of this?

Regards,

nm

Yes.

jm

I've been playing the demo for a while and it's pretty cute. It's a
set of tutorials and challenges, embedded in an adventure-game
scenario. You go to one place to get a tutorial on mating with a
queen, for example, then to another place where you have to solve six
mate-with-queen puzzles in 45 seconds to win something that you need
to get over a bridge... a format that is very familiar to folks who
play puzzle/adventure games, and probably very easy for young players
to get into. It gets somewhat away from traditional chess, though, as you
can earn money to buy some magical items that do thing like add pieces
back in (not something you'd want to get in the habit of relying on,
obviously)

One thing I found myself wondering is which puzzles are winnable. At one
point, for example, I had to defeat a king and four pawns with a single
rook and a king. I then went somewhere else and earned a rook,which made
winning that puzzle a lot easier. But I find myself wanting to go back
and replay it with just one...

The demo didn't include the "single-player" game, which iswhat they call
the actual chess engine, or any of the analysis features. Very curious
about the analysis and such. Also wondering about the copy protection!!
And wondering about the computer opponents, how tunable they are. After
CM9000, 24 opponents doesnt' really seem like a lot! Playing the same
opponent all the time isn't great practice.

Looks like a very good gift for a kid who wants to learn to play
chess, maybe even better than Chessmaster because of the eye candy stuff.

I do find it annoying that the puzzles are all on a dark, 3-D board. I
like to use 2-D boards. Got used to it pretty quickly, though.

The multiplayer part looks disappointing. It was easy to use - quite the
contrast from Chessmaster - but it doesn't seem to do some basic stuff
like offer to save the game as a pdf. Couldn't find how to chat either
but I don't believe it's really missing that feature. And again, a dark
dark board.

When's it going to be in stores?
--
Betsy Schwartz
Unix Systems Administrator,CRG
Harvard Graduate School of Design
email: betsys at gsd dot harvard dot edu

Opp, "thinko" - of course I meant pgn

Betsy Schwartz wrote in
08.105:
but it doesn't seem to do some basic stuff
like offer to save the game as a pdf.

--
Betsy Schwartz
Unix Systems Administrator,CRG
Harvard Graduate School of Design
email: betsys at gsd dot harvard dot edu

Looks like a very good gift for a kid who wants to learn to play
chess, maybe even better than Chessmaster because of the eye candy stuff.


I agree... my kids instantly fell in love with it. It doesn't appear to be
a program really aimed at adults. The reading level appears to be about Jr
High age, so my 1 and 3rd graders need a little help getting through it all
(at least to follow the story line - the instructions for playing the
challenges are fairly straightforward.

I do find it annoying that the puzzles are all on a dark, 3-D board. I
like to use 2-D boards. Got used to it pretty quickly, though.


The is an itty-bitty teenie button in the bottom right of each screen
labelled '2D' that switches you to a 2d board.


My real complaint is that it is extremely sluggish on my 1.8Ghz machine with
256Mb of memory. Often when I'm playing a timed challenge, I go to pick up
a piece and as I'm sliding it across the board, the hard drive starts
running like a mad man and the cursor locks up for 10-15 sec. When control
does come back, I have to pick up the piece again and move it (probably
because I've already let go of the piece). This seems to happen about once
a minute during challenges. I haven't noticed it during the navigational
part of the game. I can't imagine what the game would be doing that it
needs to access the hard disk while solving six mate in one problems.

Still if it doesn't bother the kids and they are able to complete the demo
level on our 533Mhz machine and stay interested, I'll probably make the
purchase.

Probably your system is swapping. What OS? I have a 999Mhz system with
WSindows 2000 and 512M RAM and it seems reasonably responsive. Although in
the challenges, it is ANNOYING that the opponent doesnt seem to have a
timer! If I have three minutes, the opponent should have three minutes.
But, I guess that's what I get for playing with orcs and trolls and
whatnot.

You might want to get more RAM on general principles - 256 isn't really
enough these days. My system used to swap like crazy until I upgraded. And
it was maybe $30 on sale.

"Curtis Thetford" wrote in
m:

My real complaint is that it is extremely sluggish on my 1.8Ghz
machine with 256Mb of memory. Often when I'm playing a timed
challenge, I go to pick up a piece and as I'm sliding it across the
board, the hard drive starts running like a mad man and the cursor
locks up for 10-15 sec. When control




--
Betsy Schwartz
Unix Systems Administrator,CRG
Harvard Graduate School of Design
email: betsys at gsd dot harvard dot edu

Betsy Schwartz wrote in message . 208.105...
The demo didn't include the "single-player" game, which iswhat they call
the actual chess engine, or any of the analysis features. Very curious
about the analysis and such. Also wondering about the copy protection!!
And wondering about the computer opponents, how tunable they are. After
CM9000, 24 opponents doesnt' really seem like a lot! Playing the same
opponent all the time isn't great practice.

The program comes with 24 opponents (although you can "unlock" eight
more Boss opponents from the adventure after defeating them). But you
CAN define your own opponents (personalities).

I do find it annoying that the puzzles are all on a dark, 3-D board. I
like to use 2-D boards. Got used to it pretty quickly, though.

There are many different board and piece set choices in the full
program. And, just like in Chessmaster, there is 2D, fixed perspective
(2-1/2 D) and true 3D.

The multiplayer part looks disappointing. It was easy to use - quite the
contrast from Chessmaster - but it doesn't seem to do some basic stuff
like offer to save the game as a pdf. Couldn't find how to chat either
but I don't believe it's really missing that feature. And again, a dark
dark board.

You can save your game in the full version. All games are saved in PGN
format. Chatting is available in the "Chat" tab of one of the windows
(I think it's called "Online"). You chat with the player you have
selected in the "Players" windows -- if you have no players selected
in that window, you are "shouting" to everybody).

When's it going to be in stores?

It has been in stores for over a week now.

jm

"Curtis Thetford" wrote in message om...
My real complaint is that it is extremely sluggish on my 1.8Ghz machine with
256Mb of memory. Often when I'm playing a timed challenge, I go to pick up
a piece and as I'm sliding it across the board, the hard drive starts
running like a mad man and the cursor locks up for 10-15 sec. When control
does come back, I have to pick up the piece again and move it (probably
because I've already let go of the piece). This seems to happen about once
a minute during challenges. I haven't noticed it during the navigational
part of the game. I can't imagine what the game would be doing that it
needs to access the hard disk while solving six mate in one problems.

What video card does this computer have? How much RAM does it have?
What other programs, if any, were running at the same time?

jm