Knights, by House
Of Fish Designs, $10
Reviewed August 2002
Knights is one of the best chess games
I could find on the Sharp Zaurus. Developed by Mark Westcott
of House Of Fish Designs, Knights uses the Phalanx chess
playing engine and supports all .pgn (Portable Game Notation)
files.
If you are not familiar with the Phalanx
engine, here is the Phalanx author’s book
on Amazon. While the Phalanx is a young chess program,
it has managed to become quite strong. You can also find
some very good chess books on Amazon. While Phalanx engine
is the default engine for Knights, the developer promises
that more chess engines will be available for download in
the future. The fact that you can download .pgn files and
play it in Knights is a very nice feature for someone who
is studying Master’s strategies.
Knights chess has 3 game modes: Solitaire
Chess, vs. Computer and Computer vs. Computer. So you can
play against another player in Solitaire game, or against
computer, or watch the computer play. The games in the Computer
vs. Computer mode are rather aggressive.
To benefit the beginners, Knights will
show the potential moves when you click on a piece, and will
highlight the pieces in Red if they are in danger. There
is a time clock as well as a move tracker where you can see
all the moves made by you and your opponents if you are not
trained to remember them on your own. Knights also supports
castling and en-passant and offers you options to call flag
automatically, and check to always promote to queen. The
game offers 5 difficulty levels and save/load game option.
To make the game more interesting, Knights
currently comes with a 2D board and a 3D board. There are
more board themes available for download from the developer’s
site. Knights will work on the Zaurus SL5000, SL5500(G),
and iPAQs running OPIE or Qtopia and takes up 1MB memory.
All in all, Knights is a great game
for a beginner to intermediate player who wants to sharpen
their skills and learn more moves. It has a big potential
to become a more complete chess game when more chess engines
are added. If you are a computer chess player and have
a Linux PDA, Knights is a good choice for you.
Playing Hints and Tips
Read more chess books and keep playing
practicing the Master’s moves. |
