You can literally smell the excitement here at VooFoo towers, and it’s not (only) due to the lack of personal hygiene time we’ve had as of late. We’ve teamed up with publisher Ripstone to bring you our latest, greatest version of Pure Chess, which hits PS4 tomorrow. And we’re extremely proud of our baby.
If you don’t know who we are, VooFoo Studios is a small team of passionate developers based in sunny Birmingham, right in the heart of England. We’ve always prided ourselves on making highly playable, photo-realistic games, and thanks to the power of the PS4 hardware we’ve been able to turn the dial up to eleven.
Displayed at 1080p and running at a silky-smooth 60 frames per second, Pure Chess on PS4 is a visual tour-de-force. We’ve doubled the texture sizes, added many extra layers of post-processing, added contact shadows, and applied ultra-realistic depth-of-field… which is a rather boring way of saying that this is a seriously good looking chess game! Couple this with a massively improved custom networking system to provide a much slicker online experience and we’re confident you’ll love Pure Chess just as much as we do.
Pure Chess is available on April 15th and will be $7.99, but you can also get your hands on the best value Complete Bundle for $14.99 which includes all the DLC. PlayStation Plus users can look forward to some cheeky discounts at launch, too!
Both VooFoo and Ripstone will be doing some code giveaways, so get following us.
Anything for folks who already bought the PS3 Complete bundle?
Can you play with other people online?
I read somewhere that this game might have Stereoscopic 3D – can you confirm whether this is correct? Where can we learn more about the DLC?
Hey Shaun,
I’m excited to get this game and Backgammon Blitz. I will be buying the Bundle (thank you for the PS Plus discount).
Cheers!!!
Graf
P.S. I sent a email to your company at the “Info” email and “Jobs” email so when you are free please look for them. My gamertag is in my signature and of course is different than my real name. Also feel free to send a friend request. Thanks again for all your hardwork on both these great games.
Wow, this looks gorgeous.
I don’t know how to play chess but I have always wanted to learn. Is this game a good way to learn to play? Also will there be a way to play against other players online? The game looks stunning! I’m really looking forward to Pure Pool also. Congrats VooFoo!
This will be the only game I let my kids play on my PS4.
What @Amnalehu said. Can we learn to play chess with this game? Thanx 4 the P+ discount at launch.
Please elaborate on “slicker online experience”. Does this version have real live multiplayer?
I would have bought this game a long time ago, if it had been cross buy. Looks great.
Chess at 60fps!!!!!!!! My mind is blown!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will this game be Free you PlayStation plus
What about Crossbuy for already owners of the PS3 and PSVita versions?
I’m with #2 here, I think the question is “Are we now able to play Live online?” I am a big fan of chess and own the PS3 version of Pure Chess which I still very much use today. As much as I love the game its shortcomings was definitely the lack of a traditional online mode, you could only play correspondence chess. While there is love for Correspondence Chess, when there are better alternatives to playing, why have correspondence as the default especially if it is as cumbersome as it was for the PS3. Another thought is that if there isn’t online in this version why would someone want to buy the PS4 version when they have the PS3 version, it would essentially be the same game with higher graphics, when there are many chess games out on PC that can offer high resolution. In other words I’m hoping this update is giving added functionality, as oppose to just redoing the game for the sole purpose of getting the game to all audiences and polishing resolution .
I won’t buy this game if it doesn’t have real-time multiplayer. I enjoyed playing it on my vita, but you can only play against the computer for so long. And the play-by-mail game is just not practical.
Can we get some more details on the “enhanced online mode”?
Online multiplayer….. hopefully
I’m yet to get this game for PS3..looks good.Always liked chess.
Definitely getting this. Haven’t played a chess game in a while. It looks beautiful, and it will be great with remote play. And there’s a Halloween board? Perfect!
This does look to be a promising chess simulator. The only problem that I’ve had with recent PlayStation games is that I buy so many I don’t have time to fully play any of them! haha
I never learned how to play chess and I would get this at some point to learn how to play chess. This game takes you through the basics and so for when teaching you I think.
I stopped playing the PS3 version because of the missing online mode, and when they say “online” they mean “play by mail” because thats all it is, no real time multiplayer.
I am only buying if i can play online, if not i will wait for a better chess game. Can you play vs a friend in local at least…
Will this be a cross-buy for the vita as well? If we purchase this can we play our friends online?
This handy little webpage will answer 95% of the questions…
http://www.purechess.com/#about-features
It would be nice if you would offer cross buy, or allow those that bought the ps3 version to download this. I bought the ps3 one on sale and I have regretted it. It would be slightly better to at least play the computer when i felt up for it on my ps4 now that is prominent.
NO online play, yet your trying to cash in on yet another version after the core development work has been done, it is essentially a port. As much as this 60f/ps sounds great for pr purposes, what would be useful is actually giving people what they want, which is a online mulitplayer.
To play offline versus makes no sense as anyone who likes chess has a real board and that is always superior face to face.
It apprears this is the same deal with your backgammon game. Asynchronous multiplayer…. which basically means none, at least which chess, the play by mail is a real thing.
If you wanted to make money off these you would give us online multiplayer, on top of ai, and offline versus.
Is it really that hard to do online multiplayer? You can’t make a 2 player turn based board game work online, yet we live in a world of mmo’s and battlefield / cod / titanfall etc?
Step 1.
Online Multiplayer
Step 2.
Crossbuy
Step 3.
Charge $10 or less (you are here on this part) or $15 for everything with a lot of boards / pieces / options.
Your product isn’t aweful, it just is not a great value to a huge portion of your prospective customers.
I would buy crossbuy both your chess and all dlc and your backgammon as well if you just offered what I actually want, Instead I hardly want to fire it up despite liking chess since i was a child. It’s a let down. The graphics are really slick and you include a few really nice sets / game boards in the base version, it’s just a shame.
I just can’t support these, and if anything i would live with them as is if they were plus games, but sadly they are not which makes no sense.
It makes me really doubt in the pool game that’s coming, Despite liking real billiards and thinking hustle kings was good (now a very old game) You even gave that for free for vita which was nice, since i bought it for ps3 originally then that trend did not follow.
I just wish i had bought chess for vita at least you can use that as a chess board in a pinch away from home which is useful. (i’m assuming)
Voofoo…you know they encourage comments back from the dev…….
I’ll just echo the sentiment of total disappointment from a lack of an online mode. I’d bet if the game was 2D but with a real online mode that ranked players like real chess it would sell better then a shiny game with no online.
Was there ever a reason given as to why this hasn’t been put in??
There’s so much potential for a world ranking system or anything better then “play by mail” which is the antithesis of a slick. If it’s still play by mail it will be a huge let down.
They said they improved the online play, can anyone comfirm if there is online play or if its still by mail or something.
”Couple this with a massively improved custom networking system to provide a much slicker online experience”
What does that mean exactly…
@JohnnyBoyQC
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/15/pure-chess-ps4-review
Updated graphics,smoother matchmaking , same game and modes. Funny too its the exact same review IGN gave the original PS3 edition just with an additional paragraph. Not a big review person but the criticisms are spot on, would’ve given the game a solid 7, but I also agree that there is way more that could be done to further Pure Chess, especially if VooFoo wants people that have adopted the game already to spend more money buying the same product.
Very disapointed, won’t buy until they add an online mode which probably won’t happen.
Really?! I thought it has live multiplayer, because of the PSN description… i want my money back!!! ..
The game is ok but clearly needs work.Its intended as online yet this lacking a chat room. Players must play other players unsure as to how many other players they might be playin. The ranking system fails then because you can be left days without another player moving whic by forfiting they then win. You get only 6 boxes to play 6 players at any one time and there is no timmer mode or stop watch. Most effort seems to have gone into trophie nonsense playing the the computer and the peices which by the way do not move. This franchise can be great but they must speed up online features. A rule book needs to allow players what rules they can play by but all in all not bad stuff for 6 pound.