Show HN: OffChess – Offline chess puzzles app

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall Reception & Use Cases

  • Many commenters find the app polished, lightweight, and exactly suited for offline tactics training, especially for flights and “bathroom thinking time.”
  • The local-first, no-account, no-subscription model is repeatedly praised; several contrast it favorably with larger platforms that feel bloated or over-monetized.

UX & Feature Feedback

  • Significant early Android bug: UI extended edge-to-edge, hiding top menu and bottom navigation under status/navigation bars on multiple devices. The developer pushed a fix; users later confirm it works once the update propagates.
  • Requested improvements:
    • Visual indication for capturable pieces (highlight/border), clearer wording on hints like “queen win” (piece vs game).
    • Auto-advance to next puzzle; option to disable text hints by default.
    • Ability to go back to the previous puzzle, see puzzle tags afterwards, and view stats by category and recent history.
    • Premove support, better placement of “next puzzle” button, optional hiding of move-path hints.
    • FEN/PGN export and bookmarking to replay or analyze puzzles in other tools.

Sound & Performance Issues

  • Several iOS users report that sounds play even when muted, pause other media, and lack a toggle; the developer commits to adding proper controls.
  • One user briefly noticed a perceptible delay between move input and animation start; it later stopped and couldn’t be reproduced.

Offline, Platforms & Distribution

  • Offline capability is a core selling point, especially vs Lichess’s 50-puzzle offline limit.
  • Users ask for a web app/PWA, desktop (especially Linux) builds, and non–Play-Services Android distribution (Aurora/F-Droid); storage constraints for large puzzle sets in PWAs are mentioned.

Pricing, Payments & Privacy

  • The model: free with a 7-puzzles-per-day limit; one-time purchase (around €4–5 depending on locale) for more.
  • No in-app login: purchases are tied to Google/App Store accounts. This is appreciated for simplicity but criticized for:
    • Inability to share across multiple Google accounts.
    • Incompatibility with de-Googled devices and privacy-minded users.
  • Some request alternative payment rails (e.g., bank transfer) and non–Play-billing builds. One commenter accuses the project of “just scraping 100k puzzles to sell,” expressing ethical discomfort.

Puzzle Sources, Quality & Rating System

  • Puzzles are sourced from the open Lichess puzzle database; some note that 100k is a subset of ~5M available.
  • There are calls to clearly attribute non-code assets/puzzle sources.
  • The rating system is described as Elo-based, factoring in both player and puzzle ratings with a variable K; details of how puzzle difficulty is determined remain unclear.

Comparisons & Alternatives

  • Multiple alternatives are discussed:
    • Lichess (strong dataset, limited offline; CSV available and used by others to generate custom feeds).
    • ChessTempo (often cited as the quality benchmark for tactics).
    • TacticMaster (F-Droid, also 100k Lichess-based puzzles).
    • CT-ART, ChessKing, and other commercial puzzle apps.
  • Some feel OffChess differentiates itself with descriptive hints, adaptive mode, and clean UX; others note that similar functionality exists for free elsewhere.

HN Moderation Meta-Discussion

  • A “stub for offtopicness” subthread causes confusion when on-topic comments are moved there.
  • A moderator explains this as an experimental way to quarantine potential “booster” comments (low-substance, highly positive) without harming the main thread, and later restores most comments after concluding enthusiasm appears organic.