Really Bad Chess (app)

Really Bad Chess keeps every rule of chess except the starting position. The pieces on each side are drawn at random, so a game might open with a row of knights or a pair of extra queens. Zach Gage released it in 2016 with the idea of opening chess up to people who never enjoyed studying openings: with the usual patterns gone, even beginners spend their first games learning how to deliver checkmate.

The Daily board is the part that makes it a daily game. Each day everyone gets the same random layout against the computer, set at a fixed rank, and you get one attempt before it locks. Players are compared on the leaderboard by how few moves they need to win. A Weekly Challenge offers a harder fixed board that you can retry as often as you like, and the Ranked mode adjusts the balance of pieces as you improve.

The app is still being worked on. 2026 updates added Knight Hike, a puzzle where a knight clears squares, a Prestige option once you reach rank 100, and Mini boards, a smaller game that comes in Daily, Ranked, Freeplay and 1v1 versions.

The app is free with ads, and one purchase unlocks local Versus play against a friend and removes the ads. On Android it is published by Noodlecake and is also part of Google Play Pass. Puzzmo also has a Really Bad Chess daily in the browser. The app suits chess players looking for something fresh and lapsed players who never liked memorising openings.