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Screenshots

  • Pulsar Chess Engine screenshot 1
  • Pulsar Chess Engine screenshot 2
  • Pulsar Chess Engine screenshot 3
  • Pulsar Chess Engine screenshot 4

About Pulsar Chess Engine

The Pulsar Chess Engine plays Chess and six variants all with multiple levels. The variants are Chess960, Crazyhouse, Loser's, Atomic, Three Checks and Giveaway. Rules included in-app. In addition, there is also a review mode to look at the user's log file with analysis available for non variants. 10 game collections of classic and modern master games are included to look at including Kasparov, Fischer, Carlsen, Capablanca and Morphy 1858 collections. These collections and the log file are searchable. Pulsar values mobility and active positions. In app there is an article with more on its playing style and how to train against it. With the variants, each has its own style. Chess960, Three Checks and Crazyhouse are the more chess like variants and adoptable to learn to play for anyone with interest. The rules of all games are in app. Pulsar has levels of play from beginner too advanced. Games with a time control are the hardest though Pulsar doesn't call the player's time. The time is more to handicap Pulsar's strength, but users will have a clock and can see if it's gone negative if they want to play the time control. The game button - configure game menu item, lets the user control the variant and difficulty. It defaults to Chess at Easy(lowest level) but remembers the current settings when the App restarts. There are choices of pieces and board color schemes. The Pulsar program was originally developed by me for computers starting in 1998 and came to mobile for the first time in 2014. Pulsar's board is accessible to the blind using Voice Over, a screen reader. Tap on a square and it will say whats on it and double tap to move or choose from three move methods. A screen reader can normally read anything with text like a button, but a board is a collection of images. To make it accessible, text must be returned to Voice Over when a tap is in the area of a square. Pulsar began as a chess program and later learned variants. It ran extensively on two servers for many years both at chess and variants. The ratings on the board reflect strength I saw in rated play on handicapped bots. They are not 100% exact but generalizations I made from the various bots I ran at different settings. If in the new game selector, Play vs. Computer is unchecked the user can move for both sides. This is to allow two people at same location to use the App as a board for a game and have the app enforce move legality and results for whatever variant is selected.

Ratings & reviews

4.3

12 ratings

5 ★ 67% 4 ★ 17% 3 ★ 8% 2 ★ 0% 1 ★ 8%

What’s new

Version 2.50 · Updated September 15, 2026

Fix for broken Game menu in iOS 27

App privacy

The developer, Michael Adams, reported these privacy practices to Apple.

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Alternatives to Pulsar Chess Engine

Looking for apps like Pulsar Chess Engine? Here are 6 similar apps on the App Store. The highest rated is Chess Tactics Pro (Puzzles) (4.7/5), and all 6 are free to download.

Pulsar Chess Engine vs. alternatives
App Rating Price Last updated
Pulsar Chess Engine 4.3 / 5 (12 ratings) 1.99 USD September 15, 2026
Chess Move - Stockfish Engine 4.3 / 5 (1,120) Free Aug 30, 2024
Openings Mastermind 4.3 / 5 (6) Free Jul 4, 2026
GPT Chess 4.1 / 5 (16) Free Jul 8, 2025
Chess Game - Chess Puzzle 4.5 / 5 (2) Free Aug 18, 2024
Chess Tactics Pro (Puzzles) 4.7 / 5 (3,699) Free Jun 11, 2026
Chess Problems Lite 4.3 / 5 (8) Free Sep 7, 2026