What it does

Boardlore is a single, polished app that presents the world's chess and board-game traditions under one consistent, elegant interface. Western chess, Shogi, Xiangqi, Go, and more each keep their own rules and their own visual heritage, but you learn one app rather than ten. It is a connoisseur's anthology of the world's strategy games — a beautifully bound collection you can carry in your pocket.

Every variant plays against an offline AI opponent that runs entirely on your device, at strength levels you choose, with no connection required. And because not everyone arrives knowing how a Shogi pawn promotes or how Go scoring works, each unfamiliar variant comes with built-in learn-the-rules onboarding that teaches you as you go.

Twenty variants across five living traditions

Boardlore ships with twenty playable variants drawn from five living traditions and their historic roots:

Western chess, with rule-variants: Chess960, Crazyhouse, Antichess, Horde, Atomic, Racing Kings, Three-check, and King of the Hill.
Shogi (Japanese chess), plus Minishogi and Dobutsu (animal shogi).
Xiangqi (Chinese chess).
Go, including Atari-Go and multiple board sizes.
Regional chess families: Janggi (Korean), Makruk (Thai), Sittuyin (Burmese), and Shatranj, the medieval Arabic root of chess.

Play offline against an on-device AI

The AI opponent is an on-device engine with multiple strength levels, so you can find a fair game whether you are learning a variant for the first time or sharpening an opening you already know. It plays fully offline — a dead signal on a train never ends a game.

Learn the rules

Each variant carries its own onboarding that teaches the pieces, the moves, and the win conditions before you sit down to a full game. You do not need to already know Xiangqi or Janggi to explore them — Boardlore teaches you.

Heritage Replay

Heritage Replay is a curated corpus of historic games spanning the traditions, so you can step through celebrated matches move by move and see how the great players handled each board.

Train

Train is puzzle practice organised by tradition — focused problems that build the pattern recognition each game rewards.

Beautiful regional art

Each tradition is rendered in its own visual heritage rather than flattened into one generic board. The look is warm and museum-like — gold and dark wood, embossed and unhurried — so the app feels like an anthology worth returning to.

How it is monetized, honestly

The core game is free. Optional rewarded ads are available if you want a hint or an undo, and there are cosmetic in-app purchases — regional art sets — alongside an optional premium unlock. There is no pay-to-win and there are no forced mid-game interstitials. Premium changes how the app looks and removes ads; it never changes how a game is decided.

Get it

Boardlore is coming soon to iOS, Android, and the web. Store and play links will appear here once it is live.

Boardlore