''Play Magnus'' is a commercial

computer chess Computer chess includes both hardware (dedicated computers) and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysi ...

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

available for the

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on ...

s. The software is named after World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and features adjustable difficulty levels for chess players of various skills. It has been available since 2014 and is developed by the Norwegian company

Play Magnus AS Play Magnus Group is a Norwegian chess company co-founded by chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in 2013. The company released the mobile app '' Play Magnus'' in 2014, before merging with chess24 in 2019 and being acquired by Chess.com in 2022. Hi ...

, which was co-founded by Carlsen.

Description

The program is a chess engine tuned to play at 30 different skill levels based on Magnus Carlsen's ability at given ages. Users earn points by playing chess, or can purchase points for money. Points can be spent on querying the engine for move suggestions, and on the undo function (the cost of this is higher at the higher levels). With a large points balance, it used to be possible to win a chance of playing Magnus in person but this is no longer mentioned by the app. After each game, the app gives the user a chance to "share" their result on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, or to save the game as PGN. It also includes various quotes from Magnus that are presented between games. The first skill level ("age 5") plays moves predominantly at random.

History

The development of ''Play Magnus'' began after Carlsen founded Play Magnus AS and invested his own money and funds from investors into the company. It was developed by a team including Tord Romstad, one of the creators of

Stockfish Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks (which are called "hjell" in Norway) on the foreshore. The drying of food is the world's oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage lif ...

, who said he based the engine on his Stockfish predecessor "Glaurung" to avoid copyright issues with Stockfish itself. Romstad also said they "intentionally made the progression up to about age 14 a bit more linear than it was in reality (in an attempt to make the progression not be too steep, but user feedback indicates that it might be too steep nevertheless)". Play Magnus was released in January 2014 for

and late 2014 for

. It received close to one million downloads by November 2016. It had risen to 2.8 million downloads as of December 2017. In August 2022, the

Play Magnus Group Play Magnus Group is a Norwegian chess company co-founded by chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in 2013. The company released the mobile app ''Play Magnus (mobile app), Play Magnus'' in 2014, before merging with chess24 in 2019 and being acquired by ...

accepted an offer of acquisition from

Chess.com Chess.com is an internet chess server, news website and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be pla ...

, for nearly $83 million.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Play Magnus 2014 software Android (operating system) games Chess software IOS games Magnus Carlsen 2022 mergers and acquisitions