Arasan

Arasan is a lightweight application that makes it possible to play competitive chess against an AI opponent. It’s built to be easy to use and accessible to both beginners and those who play on a daily basis on an advanced level.

Arasan displays a straightforward and user-friendly interface which makes it more than comprehensive to anyone who wants to play. It’s comprised out of a board section on which you can see and move the pieces, a toolbar with various commands and settings, as well as a section that displays game information.

Pieces are moved using your mouse, you can choose which color pieces you want to play with, games can be saved, moves copied and you can even export the progress of a game as a text file.

Arasan is built to test both Masters and true chess passionate people so expect it to be merciless, as far as that applies in chess. It will calculate/think of its moves while you make yours and if it takes too much time to think, you can tell the app to hurry up.

The chess application somehow seems inconsistent in it the way it works, it can sometimes seem like it doesn’t put up much of a fight and at times you find yourself in checkmate a lot faster than you would have expected. You can rewind moves in case you make a mistake and you can even have Arasan suggest a move for you.

On a closing note, Arasan has the basics of a very good chess game. It doesn’t offer much in terms of visuals or any kind of fancy options but if you’re looking for a clean and challenging chess match, Arasan offers a good start.