Do you have a child yearning to learn to play chess? Do you know how to teach how to play chess? Well then you will want to read more about Brain Blox and their amazing Fun Family Chess!
What is Fun Family Chess? Well it's a chess set that includes a hard wooden foldable board with two pouches that hold the two sets of pieces (one white and one brown for the two sides), two reference cards, an instruction booklet, and a cube di for rolling. You can use the board in pieces to play the 'game' of Fun Family Chess or even standard chess. What's the difference? Well let us tell you that after this cute little box opening video my son did when he saw the review had arrived.
Now once you and your family have the board and pieces and refence cards and di you are ready to play Fun Family Chess. All you have to do is set up the pieces on the board and you are ready to go! Oh wait, you don't know how to set the pieces up? That's fine because has a great YouTube video on how to do exactly that which you can watch by clicking the link. There is another video as well to help teach how to play Fun Family Chess that you can watch before diving in yourselves.
All you have to do is set up the pieces (just like in standard chess) and roll the di. It shows you a picture of the piece you are to move. There's also a video you can a watch that tells you how each piece moves in the game. If it's a star you can move ANY piece including the King and it's the only way to move the king. There are a few differences between Fun Family Chess and standard chess. You can not Castle, put the King in Check or Checkmate.
This can be slightly confusing to a player who might have some knowledge into how to play chess, but what Fun Family Chess does is allow all the players to get thoroughly familiar with all the pieces and how each of them move individually and not worry too much about strategy, thinking 3-4 moves out, and having backup plans for when an opponent moves a different piece than you were anticipating. You can watch another video to help show you how you or your child can move onto to playing standard chess after you are fully familiar with playing Fun Family Chess. This I think was slightly frustrating to my son at first.
When we first got the game we set it up straight away and started to play ... well, after we read the rule book quickly. We've played many games in the last few weeks and I've even seen my younger daughter playing with my son (she is not a fan of standard chess) but this allowed them both to play without 'thinking' too much. Strategy isn't the ultimate goal of Fun Family Chess. The creators intended this game to help teach the pieces, how they move, and have the player be intimately knowledgable about this before they had to worry about the harder strategic issues that help to build logic and analysis skills.
Here's a quote from my husband who also played many a game since we have had Fun Family Chess in the house.
'I like it for teaching the moves and basic strategy. It definitely "levels the playing field" for new and experiences players. But it is still fun for older players as it allows you to take some risks based on the change that the opponent may not be able to make their optimal move.'
Here's some thoughts from my son who was the main person playing chess and who really wants to be able to play well, especially against his father.
It was interesting to use. I think that little people or younger players or those who don't know much about chess would be able to play this against people who have years of experience and still have fun and even win. That's always more fun. It was easy to play since you don't die as much if you're playing against someone who has WAY more experience. I know that we were supposed to use the di so that we were told what move to make and sometimes that frustrated me - mainly because I knew I could put my opponent in check or checkmate, but the di told me to use a certain piece. I do think that each piece should be made in the color that the cheat sheet had while you are learning. You could use darker colors and lighter colors for the black/white so that you know which pieces go according to the chart. I ended up playing this almost every day and since you use a di the games were realtively quick so it was easy to finish in less than 30 minutes, but usually in less than 15 minutes. And my sisters played against me more since they just had to do what the di told you to do. That was fun!
I think you can tell we've had loads of fun playing Fun Family Chess and I forsee there will be many, many games in our future.
Thank you Brain Blox for this creative approach to teaching one how to play chess. If you want to learn more about Brain Blox you can find them on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Don't take our word for it, but check out all the other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew by clicking the link below!
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