Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

ChessMe is a fast-paced chess variant played without a board. This tabletop game condenses traditional chess into a streamlined format and is published by Mücke Spiele. The second edition features refined rules and… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. ChessMe board game 2nd Edition – chess without board launched in 2015; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1CA
   ChessCoach – A neural chess engine that comments on each player's moves▲506

   2021 · chrisbutner.github.io · its alternatives →

2. 2CM
   Chessboardify – Make the grid a chessboard▲95

   2016 · chessboardifygame.xyz · its alternatives →

3. 3OC
   Online chessboard without any rules▲16

   My personal project: https://github.com/leonidasdeim/chasse Goal was to build session based chessboard game without any rules - to play just like oldschool over the board. Just create new board and share link with a friend. I would appreciate any feedback and github star. Thanks!

   2023 · chasse.fun · its alternatives →

4. 4
   Noctie▲284

   Practice chess with a genius owl

   2024 · noctie.ai · its alternatives →

5. 5
   3Chess▲106

   Play three player chess online free for web and mobile

   2023 · 3-chess.com · its alternatives →

6. 6
   Half chess▲76

   A casual chess game where games only last 5 minutes

   2020 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

7. 7K
   Kriegspiel▲68

   2014 · krgspl.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Not Chess▲76

   A puzzling chess-like game

   2020 · notchess.crevasse.co · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Chesscademy▲135

   A fun and free way to learn chess.

   2014 · chesscademy.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    1D Chess▲66

    Test your skills and strategy with 1D Chess

    2020 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Board Defenders▲75

    Puzzel games based on the chess rules

    2015 · ludusstudio.com · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Play Chess Without Moving Pieces▲36

    Guess AI Engine Tournament Position, Fun Stury Tool. Play Chess Without Moving Pieces. Crazy Chess is a Variant of Random Fisher and Really Bad Chess. Because of the rearranged pieces, players cannot use typical chess opening moves. study tool to understand chess, and learning how to read the board.

    2017 · ba.net · its alternatives →

13. 13CA
    Chess and Video Chat, no login required▲124

    2020 · rootshirechess.glitch.me · its alternatives →

14. 14
    e4e5▲73

    Casual, minimal chess app

    2020 · e4e5.app · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Chess With Friends▲105

    Play chess with friends right from Figma

    2020 · figma.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    ChessGPT▲72

    Unbeatable chess bot

    2023 · chessgpt.ai · its alternatives →

17. 17
    ChessNotation▲89

    Learn Chess notations to analyse, visualise and review games

    2021 · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Chesses▲7

    Your pieces do the strangest things!

    2019 · pippinbarr.com · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Halfchess▲69

    Learn to be a better Chess player, playable in your browser

    2017 · halfchess.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Termichess – Play chess in your terminal▲50

    Hey everyone, I have been trying to build a terminal based app for sometime now and this is an attempt at trying to build a chess app that one can play right inside terminal. I was inspired by `chess-tui`[1] which is a rust based project and was looking to build something similar using python. Luckily I stumbled upon textual[2] recently and it made my task of building this far more easier than I thought. [1] https://github.com/thomas-mauran/chess-tui [2] https://github.com/textualize/textual

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    Matle – A Daily Chess Puzzle Inspired by Wordle▲85

    Hi HN, Matle is a daily chess puzzle inspired by Wordle. You're shown a checkmate position with 5 hidden squares, and your goal is to guess what’s on them to complete the mate. Someone kindly shared it here a few months ago before I had the chance to post it myself. I’m the creator, and wanted to share a few new features based on feedback, and hear your thoughts. You can now view the original game behind each puzzle, get explanations for why a guess isn’t checkmate, and see daily solving stats. Would love to hear what you think: https://matle.io

    2025 · matle.io · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Chess Twist▲29

    I continue my experiment of transposing classic games onto an irregular grid. I've previously released variants of minesweeper and checkers. And now I'd like to share my variant of Chess. Chess can be a pretty punishing game, but I thought this was nevertheless a way to make it even more challenging by making it trickier to anticipate your opponent, even though both players still have the same information. From the playtests I've done, that challenge is pretty compelling. It also seems to be more fun at 2 people, where both players keep surprising one another.

    2024 · polyreplay.com · its alternatives →

23. 23R
    Retichess▲45

    2014 · retichess.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Schmess▲4

    Solo dev here. Schmess is chess with the turn structure removed. Both players move whenever they have a free slot, and every piece freezes on a cooldown after it moves. It's on a half board, with 100+ puzzle stages. If two people played this over a physical board they'd scrape each other's fingers raw - that's roughly the tempo. Plays in the browser, no signup. 29 stages free, one-time unlock for the rest ($3.99 / Rs 149). No subscription, no ads. It's the second of a few small-board variants I'm building (halfchess was the first, more coming). Building a chess engine for a game with no…

    Jul 2026 · schmess.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →