System Requirements

OS: Windows 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP CPU: 233mhz AMD/Intel processor RAM: 32 MB CD-ROM: 16X VIDEO: 16 bit color SOUND: 16 bit compatible sound card Ages: Everyone

You are prince Fritz, the son of a really smart king. The king and queen left for vacation and you and your cousin Bianca get to play king and queen in their absence. Sounds like fun right? Well it\'s not all fun and games. The sneaky King Black challenges you to a chess dual. Apparently your grandfather beat him and he wants to take revenge on you while your father is away. If you are good at chess King Black is a worth opponent. If you\'re not good at chess it\'s time to learn, and this game will teach you a lot.

Game Play

You are not alone in your journey to learn chess. King Kaleidoscope will show you around the different areas of the kingdom. Each area has a mini game that will teach you the principles of moving your different chess pieces. * Sumo Wrestlers-teaches you how to move kings: don\'t get too close! * Tremblina Savapenny-learn how rooks move, and avoid the spider! * Take your pick-learn the various movements of the queen by collecting flowers quickly! * Smash the toilets-teaches you how to move diagonally like bishops. * Show Jumping Course-Jump fences in L shapes like knights do. * Peasant Pawns of Pleasantville-Learn how pawns fight diagonally, and whop em! After you complete the mini games it\'s time to learn the good stuff. The Brain-Building Intelligym will take you from a light-weight chess player to a heavy weight. You can weigh yourself at anytime to see where you rank. You\'ll collect various trophies for each area you master. You\'ll learn about castling, stair climbing the king, pawn promotion, stale mates, and draws. There is a chess machine there that you can play with random pieces to test your skills. It\'s hard! Fortunately there\'s a help feature which can guide your movements when you\'re stuck. This is even available when you\'re dueling King Black!

I\'ve beaten King Black now what?

You can always go back to the mini games and intelligym. However, once you\'ve faced King Black you can re-challenge him or play against Chesster and King Kaleidoscope. King Kaleidoscope is pretty easy and it won\'t take much to defeat him. King Black is a worthy foe and whoops me pretty good. My favorite is dueling Chesster which lets me choose my difficulty level between 0-10. (I\'m about a 2-3 level player without help)

Appropriate?

King Black is not a nice guy, he\'ll throw some insults your way but nothing too worth mentioning. This game is great for kids.

Final Thoughts

The game pretty much runs off of the CD and doesn\'t require much hard drive space. It ran pretty stable, just make sure the CD is in before launching the game. Stability wise it only freaked out once or twice, it\'s nice that the game resumes right where you left off. For movement you just need your mouse. The graphics are 2D and are very cute. There is an option to turn off the cartoon characters and use the standard chess pieces. (This way it doesn\'t look like your playing a kiddie game) Seriously, this game is fun for all ages and it was fun learning the chess basics. The game does come with the official rules if you like reading material. The game also comes with a free 1 year membership to http://www.playchess.comwhere you can play people online! For anyone wanting to learn chess I would highly recommend this game. It\'s fun for all ages and for anyone who likes games that make them think. The Fritz engine is what powers the computers\' playing moves and it\'s pretty darn good. With the various difficulty levels there is lots of replay value. This is a very good deal for $29.95.