Deep Green
I used my iPod Touch extensively during our holiday, crammed full of audio books, music and a number of interesting applications from the iTunes store. Unfortunately, the Touch‘s life came to a rather sudden end two days prior to our flight back. It suffered the white screen of death and could not be coaxed back to life. A number of restores and reinstallations of the latest firmware could do nothing but keep the white screen from being lit up.
A visit to the local iStore achieved little – the unit has been sent in for repairs… since these things are pretty much sealed and not really designed for opening up, I’m hoping for a replacement.
While the Touch was still operational I quite enjoyed playing chess. One of the better applications available is Deep Green. It features attractive graphics and a very intuitive user interface. At USD 7.99 it’s not cheap, but its chess engine is suitable for a wide range of skill levels and offers custom board setups, too.
Deep Green has deep Apple roots, having been coded to run on the Newton almost ten years ago. It is one of the few chess applications for the iPod that includes move suggestions, playback of moves, display of captured pieces, play modes against the machine or another human and a concentration engine to make the program behave in a more human fashion.
Numerous options are available to control how the engine behaves.
Luckily for me, Deep Green is able to cater for those who don’t spend too much time in front of the chequered board. It can be a rather tough opponent.
I’d say Deep Green is one of the best looking chess games available at present, but it’s not just a pretty face. If you’re in the market to test your chess skills, this game comes highly recommended!
