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Well, it's not. Both of my children really liked the characters and the story. I was a little wary of buying Fritz and Chesster because it was unclear whether reading was required. I considered Dinosaur Chess, but it seemed that the emphasis was more on teaching how the pieces move, and my son had mastered that. I was looking for a way to teach my 5 1/2 year old son more about chess. My son already liked chess when I got this program, but he is growing to love it more through Fritz and Chesster. The arcade style games are fun, and the graphics are completely appropriate for young kids. My son has needed me to sit with him and help him in the latter part of the program.The first games teach how the pieces move.
In one game, you are given a configuration of pieces on the board, and asked to achieve checkmate within a certain number of moves, usually either 1, 2, or 3. I've been playing it too so that I can keep up with them, and it is challenging and instructive for me as well. I had taught him how the pieces move, but since I never learned anything more than that (such as basic checkmates), I couldn't help. After you have mastered those games, you are introduced to your "trainer" Chesster, who teaches basic checkmates and other strategies. My five year old son and my seven year old daughter both love this program. My daughter was able to master all of the games with no help. These chess puzzles are challenging, but not discouraging, even for my son (although he did need some help).Both of my kids have learned a great deal from this program -- and so have I. I could not be happier.
You and your kid will be asleep by the time you figure out what to do next. This may be the worst instructional software I ever purchased.
My seven year old is totally engrossed in this. It's all in the patterns.The animation and characters are great. Love it.By the way- there is a "Chess Complete" version that has all three games on 1 disk. The toilet smashing bishop training was pretty hysterical. #3, interestingly, is only on Amazon for Windows, but it does exist for Macs as seen in the Chess Complete product. My son freaked out when he tied Grandpa White for the lead.Chess is about practicing patterns and these patterns don't emerge much in games when kids play. It's a great learning tool because they are playing games that have more meaning in the story to learn certain basics. The voice acting great.
I taught my son to play, but he doesn't want to do drills to learn pawn combat of mating patterns. With a game like this, they get to focus on core chess patterns, as well as feel victorious when doing these drills.As an interesting fact regarding chess patterns and repetition - in memory studies, Grandmasters who are famous for recalling chess board layouts from past games did only marginally better then the general population when asked to memorize RANDOM arrangements of chess pieces on the board. Amazon doesn't list it, but I got it from the Apple Store for my Mac. As Amazon doesn't sell the complete version, I am mentioning this here.
I then bought it for another child who asked me to teach her to play chess. I first saw this product when a friend's child was using it. He really liked it. She told me, "It's really fun and I like the computer game a lot." She was working on teaching me how to play better. It's fun, it's easy, and I've learned stuff.
My kids used this to learn to play chess and became quite good too. I'd highly recommend this game.
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