11 variants. 4 modifiers. A personal AI tutor. 1–4 player online multiplayer with named AI opponents. Build your own board — or just play classic.
Variochess is the umbrella platform — we ship every popular chess variant, every modern modifier, and a personal AI coach that explains every move. Pick the rules that suit your mood.
Classic, Antichess, Crazyhouse, Chess960, Atomic, Horde, Fog of War, MapChess and more — not separate apps, all in one client.
Live commentary during play. Set sensitivity: catch only blunders, or every inaccuracy. Recap mode reviews the whole game move by move.
Real-time WebSocket multiplayer. Solo duels, two-player teams, or 3–4 player free-for-all on a shared board.
Every variant supports human-vs-human, human-vs-AI, and (where rules permit) team or Free-for-All play. Tap any card for the long-form rules.
Standard 8×8 chess. Win by checkmate.
FIDE rules with full move validation: castling, en passant, pawn promotion, stalemate, 50-move rule, threefold repetition. Optional Chess960 starting positions.
Win by losing all your pieces first. Captures are mandatory.
Also known as Antichess. The King is just another piece — no checks, no checkmate. Stalemate is a win for the player who can't move. Captures are forced when available.
Two-phase variant: build the board, then play chess on terrain.
Phase 1: players take turns placing squares (a checkerboard pattern is enforced) and their pieces, so no two games start from the same board. Phase 2: normal chess combat on the board you just built. Supports 1v1, 2v2 teams, and 3–4 player Free-for-All.
3–4 player MapChess. Every player fights alone; last King standing wins.
Players use distinct colors (White, Black, Blue, Yellow). No alliances — every player is an enemy. When your King is captured, you're eliminated but the board continues.
MapChess opening with forced 1 King + 3 Pawns. Unlock the full army later.
You begin with just a King and three Pawns. After the opening phase, the full army (1 Queen, 2 Rooks, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, plus more Pawns) becomes available to deploy. Supports 1v1, 2v2 teams.
Captured pieces join your pool. Drop them back instead of moving.
When you capture, the piece goes to your pool. On your turn you can drop a piece from the pool onto any empty square — instead of making a normal move. Pawns cannot be dropped on rank 1 or 8. Can be played standalone or as a modifier on top of Classic, Losing, or Atomic.
Randomized back rank. Pawns start normally. No opening memorization.
Fischer Random Chess: the back-rank pieces are shuffled to one of 960 legal starting positions. Bishops on opposite colors; King between the Rooks (so castling stays legal). Promotions, en passant, and all other rules unchanged.
Win by putting your opponent in check three times — or standard checkmate.
Each check on your opponent's King counts. After three checks, you win immediately. Standard checkmate still wins instantly.
Captures explode in a 3×3 area. Kings can't capture.
Every capture detonates: the capturing piece, captured piece, and all adjacent non-Pawn pieces are removed from the board. Pawns survive the blast. Kings cannot capture. Win by detonating the enemy King or by standard checkmate.
Black has a standard army. White has 36 Pawns and no King.
Asymmetric variant: Black wins by capturing every White piece. White wins by checkmating Black. White's Pawns can advance one or two squares from their starting position (any rank). En passant available.
Norse-day weekday piece mnemonic. 1+1+1 daily move budget. 3 inactive days = loss.
Each UTC weekday unlocks one featured piece via Norse mnemonic (Mon=Rook, Tue=Knight, Wed=Bishop, Thu=Queen, Fri=Bishop, Sat=Knight, Sun=Queen). You have three moves per day: the featured piece, a Pawn, and your King. Miss three consecutive days and you forfeit. Only Chess960 modifier allowed; no time control beyond the calendar itself.
Stack modifiers on top of any compatible variant. Classic Chess · Crazyhouse · Fog of War is a perfectly normal game type here.
Drop captured pieces back instead of moving. Works on Classic, Losing, Atomic, MapChess.
See only the squares your pieces can attack or move to. No checkmate — you lose only when your King is captured. Optional team vision in 2v2.
Split one piece into three equal-value pieces. Available for MapChess, Classic, Losing.
Random back-rank starting positions for Classic, Losing, and Mnemonic Calendar.
Every game type supports AI opponents. Match your level — or climb. The ratings below are calibrated on the classic variants; the board-building and fog variants use a different engine, where the same five tiers order the same way.
The 🎓 tutor watches every move and chimes in when something interesting happens.
WebSocket multiplayer with auto-reconnect. Live in-game chat and private DMs.
Add friends by username, invite to any variant, accept by tap. Email notifications for invites and turn reminders.
Per-variant ratings, daily-play badge, win streaks. Spectator mode + full game-history replay.
Stylized illustrations of the live app.
Free on Google Play. Android only at v1 — iOS and a browser-based client are on the roadmap, with no firm dates yet.
Variochess is live on the Play Store. Free, no ads, no in-app purchases. Requires Android 7.0+.
Get it on Google PlayYes — Variochess is free and fully open. Every feature is unlocked for everyone, with no ads and no in-app purchases.
You need an account to play online (so other players can find you and so we can route turn notifications). You can sign in with Google — you still pick a username, but there's no password to create — or register with an email address and a password. Either way we don't ask for a phone number, address, or any payment information.
The minimum needed to run the service: your email, username, password (bcrypt-hashed), game moves, friend list, and basic device/IP info on connection. We don't run ads or third-party analytics. The full breakdown is in our Privacy Policy.
Android 7.0 Nougat and later. The app is built with Flutter and works on phones, tablets, and Chromebooks with Play Store. Real-time multiplayer needs a stable internet connection.
Probably — the engine is cross-platform and the Flutter client compiles to iOS. We're launching Android-first to keep the rollout focused. No firm iOS date yet.
Yes. No ads, no third-party tracking, no analytics SDKs in the app. Passwords are bcrypt-hashed with a per-account salt. Authentication uses JWT over HTTPS. The full policy is at /privacy_policy.html.
Email support@variochess.com — we read every message.
A solo developer based in Europe. Open about the small-team origin: no VC, no growth-hacking, just chess.