Hipsta Chez Review

Hipsta Chez is a solitary game that uses both sides of a chess board and a random assortment of pieces. You’ll play both sets of chess pieces and don’t have to alternate between colors. The point of the game is to line up at least 4 like colors in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally. When you do, they disappear from the board. Your goal is to clear the board as fast as you can.

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Hipsta Chez: neat puzzle game, terrible name

Hipsta Chez is a solitary game that uses both sides of a chess board and a random assortment of pieces. You’ll play both sets of chess pieces and don’t have to alternate between colors. The point of the game is to line up at least 4 like colors in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally. When you do, they disappear from the board. Your goal is to clear the board as fast as you can.

The difficulties in accomplishing this come in two different ways. The first is that you must move all the pieces according to their chess rules. So pawns move one space at a time, bishops can move diagonally as many as they want, etc. The other that is any move you make that doesn’t result in pieces being removed (say moving one into position) will result in some pieces spawned back onto the board. If you make a move and there’s no more pieces to get put back on the board, then you lose. Clear everything and you win!

So the game becomes a real tug of war as you try to maximize your movements, since moving a pawn five spaces to get it into a clear able position would result in a ton of new pieces on the board to deal with. You can clear more than 4 at once, and can combine different orientations, so that’s really the secret of getting ahead of the repopulating pieces.

For my first few games I sort of got locked into a perpetual state of attrition. I couldn’t get ahead, but wasn’t falling behind piece-wise. It just seemed that for every four pieces I’d clear from the board, I’d have another four added in the course of clearing them. Only after playing for awhile did I start to see the strategy needed to really start to come out on top, but it’s not easy.

Some people may roll their eyes when I complain about something like the title of a game or the logo, but to me they’re important and make a statement about your game. It’s the first impression people have when browsing the App Store. So, what does Hipsta Chez say about this game? Not a thing. They’re two nonsensical words jammed together for god knows what reason.

Sure I guess Chez sounds a little like the word chess, but it’s a stretch. But what does playing solitaire chess (or Chez) have to do with being a hipster? Nothing. But I guess it lets you make a logo that has a chess piece that’s wearing those stupid hipster sunglasses. So, that’s something… right? Does it ruin the gameplay in any way, shape or form? Absolutely not. But as a first impression or selling point, I think not only does it miss the mark for me, but if I were to glance at it in the App Store I wouldn’t take a second to investigate it further.

Hipsta Chez Hipsta Chez

The game has a few additional modes called Blitz and Superblitz, but they’re never really explained and I just think it means they give you a timer to move each piece, with the super version giving you less time. There are built in achievements too, and getting them opens up scoring multipliers like in Tiny Wings.

Overall I did enjoy Hipsta Chez, even if I absolutely abhor the name and would have a hard time telling a friend to check it out less the words get stuck in my throat. It’s not an easy game, even on normal, but rewards those with patience and some chess skill. Getting those pieces to work in harmony is really key to getting any forward progress in the game.

The good

    The bad

      60 out of 100