National Master Reviews Dinosaur Chess
May 10, 2010
Tags: Product Reviews, New, Etc
National Master Kayden Troff wrote the following review of Dinosaur Chess by Convekta:
Dinosaur Chess Software
This product is tons of fun for beginning chess students! My parents never did teach me how to play chess. I watched my dad and brothers play when I was two and learned how all of the pieces moved through watching them. This is probably not normal and when my little sister wanted to learn, we used this chess software to help her learn chess and to have fun at the same time.
My little sister is four and will sit at the computer next to my computer and have her “chess time” just like me. She sees me study everyday and in the evenings before I go to bed and she wants to do what she sees her older brother doing. This chess software is very easy to use even for a child.
How the Software Works
So this is how it works: You create a user id so that you can stop playing at anytime and then return to work on the software later on. This is important because there are lots of lessons and activities and this makes it so that you don’t have to go through and solve the entire thing in one turn. It is sometimes annoying when you purchase an older video game with Wii points like Super Mario Brothers 2 and you have to complete the whole game in its entirety without any chance to save the game. My dad and little sister solved Super Mario Brothers 2 recently, but they spent hours doing it and they would have to leave the Wii running overnight so that it wouldn’t erase their progress. This software is updated so it does save your progress.
For your user id you can choose to be a boy dinosaur or girl dinosaur. This is really cool for my little sister because she can be the dinosaur in a pink dress and lipstick. As you might guess she gave her girl dinosaur the same name as hers.
She then will work on the training. This consists of learning about the chess board set up and names of the pieces and then about each of the chess pieces and how they move. There is a short amount of instructions given for each mini-lesson along with the Scottish teacher dinosaur that will show examples on the chess board during the instructions. You can choose from several different styles of chess pieces and my sister chose the chess pieces with the funny faces on them. Music plays the entire time that you use this software and it seems fun and upbeat. The lessons even include some of the tougher chess concepts like castling, en passant and promotion of your pawns.
When the dinosaur teacher asks a question then the student has a chance to answer the question by clicking on the chess piece or square on the chess board. If you get the question correct then it’s usually accompanied by a loud explosion of the piece or the square and the teacher congratulates you and tells you that you got the right answer. At the end of each mini lesson there is an activity to reinforce the concepts that were being taught. Usually the mini activity/game at the end of the lesson involves “Raptor” dinosaurs slowly chasing around the chess board while you try to move your Rooks, or Knights or Bishops correctly to capture the candy, ice cream or cookies that appear on the chessboard.
Let me stop for a minute here and say that these games are good to learn the concepts but they can be pretty stressful for a little kid when the “Raptor” dinosaur catches them and the mini game resets. My little sister would get pretty stressed out and ask for assistance when she was younger because these dinosaurs would freak her out. You also have to be old enough to be able to use a mouse and a cursor to use this software.
After you complete a mini-game at the end of each lesson then the Scottish dinosaur teacher does a little dance and plays his bagpipes for you, and your character grows a little bigger each time. My little sister likes it when her dinosaur grows bigger. This is also important for another part of the game. There is a Dinosaur Fight part of the game that really has nothing to do with chess. You can pick different dinosaurs to fight against. You then get to Punch, Kick or Burp your opponent off of the board. It’s kind of annoying but little kids seem to like it and you can’t be successful unless you grow your dinosaur bigger through completing the lessons and the mini-games.
You also can challenge the dinosaurs to a game of chess. These dinosaurs have baseball caps, headphones and other things that make them look like cool dinosaurs. Each of the chess games range from easy to hard depending on the dinosaur that you challenge. Except for T-Rex, all of the other chess games don’t start like a normal chess game. Some of the pieces are off the board. Less and less pieces are missing as you challenge tougher dinosaur opponents and if you challenge the T-Rex then all of the pieces are there on both sides of the board. The T-Rex battle/chess game is still quite easy since it misses most of your threats and plays at a very low level.
There is a page that you can view within this software that has all the dinosaurs that you have beaten, or all the lessons that you have completed and as you do more of this then this number grows. These dinosaurs and pieces bounce around in their boxes and your child can use this to track their progress in a fun way.
I should mention that this Convekta product often asks for the product key every month or so. This can be annoying, but you’ll want to keep it handy and not lose it so that your child can use this software.
This truly is a kids teaching software program for absolute beginners and for ages 4-6 unless your child is really good with the computer. It is a fun way to learn how to play chess! It may seem like it is more meant for boys, but my little sister really liked it too especially because she could be a girl dinosaur.
October 6th, 2011 at 7:17 am
I bought the iPad version of this software. I’ve never seen anything as good for teaching young children how to play chess. When I’m struggling to teach first graders en passant, I grab my iPad, open Dinosaur Chess, and let the Dinosaur do the teaching.