Background: I am a novice - familiar with the basics of the game, but I’ve only played against bots or very casual OTB games.
I skipped the first section on piece movements and basic rules and went on to try some of the lessons in the Beginner section - Queen & Rook vs King, Rule of the Square, and Rules of Development. All three functioned smoothly and I love the interactions.
I was already familiar with the common ladder checkmate and the lesson seemed to cover it well. I did not know about the rule of the square - that lesson was extremely helpful as a beginner. The openings lesson covered basic development in a way that is easy to understand.
I’m really impressed so far. I can’t wait to see more lessons in the future. I think drills to go with the lessons would also be a nice integration down the line.
You made it sound like a message that popped up only if you had pieces on the board once you started it and it wouldn’t let you proceed until you removed them.
Not at all your mistake but starting from there in the thread (without having time to try out lessons yet) I also had the impression that I would be expecting a vocal warning for emptying the board first. I guess it’s just another occurence of cognitive consonance.
You folks delivered it. Well done! I noticed that the video playback will start/resume even if the pieces are not correct, as long as they are in the expected squares. Not sure if it’s by design. I just thought that for more complex lessons a wrong board configuration could cause confusion., especially when the lesson involves rolling back a few moves.
Not a big deal and maybe it’s not even a bug. Just wanted to mention it.
Thank you all for the amazing board and lessons. The options are limitless!!
Some feedback on the rule of square lesson.
There’s no automatic restart on the app when a piece is moved? Not a big deal as I just press play on the app and it continues with the lesson however, I thought I’d point this out.
This is a bug in general and can bite during any lesson. We are working on it.
Short version - we send bluetooth messages between the board and app during the lesson. We need to improve the robustness and make sure every message 100% makes it.
So people have better success placing the device close to the screen side of the board. But we will make it so there is freedom of position and reliable messages.
I got the ChessUp 2 so that I could play chess without using another person otb or using another device. I haven’t tried the lessons, but if you could add lesson support on the board itself using the built in screen instead of the app, that would be great!
I like the idea. Triples as useful for nightplay when people around is asleep and you don’t want the hassle of plugging/pairing headphones. I did choose ChessUp over other rival brands for its relative lack of dependency on smartphone or big screen, I have enough of those in my life as it is.
