Chess has been around for 1,500 years. It was never really built for everyone.
We're a two-person indie studio from Brazil. One of us has a father who's been hard of hearing since he was 7 years old. When we started building BOT.VINNIK Chess Masters Academy, a chess puzzle game with a sarcastic Soviet robot coach, accessibility wasn't in the roadmap.
Then we asked ourselves: what if we actually made chess for everyone?
So we did.
Voice Command Recognition: Now avaible!
The feature we're most proud of is Voice Command Recognition, and it's live right now in the free demo.
You can use board coordinates or NATO phonetic alphabet, whichever feels more natural. Alpha Two, or just A2. BOT.VINNIK doesn't care how you talk, only about whether your move was good. It probably wasn't.
To use it, just enable the feature in the settings before you start.
And if you need a hint during the game, say it out loud. Say hint or call out Laika she shows up to help without judgment. BOT.VINNIK has plenty of judgment to go around, so Laika handles the rest.
We tested this extensively and landed at around 95% recognition accuracy. We're proud of that number. We also know it means nothing until people with different voices, accents, and setups actually try it.
Chess for everyone!
We also added text scaling for players with visual limitations, and auto-advance dialogue for anyone who doesn't want to click through every line. BOT.VINNIK has a lot to say. He disagrees with that last feature, for the record.
We're not accessibility experts. We're two developers who wanted to do right by more players. And that's exactly why your feedback matters so much to us.
We built these features because someone we love needed them. But we can't know if they actually work until people who live with these realities tell us. Not metrics. Not internal testing. Real people, real setups, real experiences. If we get this wrong, we fail the exact players we were trying to reach. We don't want to do that.
Your feedback is very important to us. We just need you to play the demo...
The demo is free and open on Steam right now. Go play it. Try the voice commands. Break something. And when you're done, tell us what happened.
There's a feedback form both here and inside the demo itself. Can Voice Command Recognition handle your voice, your accent, your pace? Does text scaling work for your setup? Is there anything we missed? We want to know all of it. No chess experience required. BOT.VINNIK will teach you. Reluctantly.
→ Try the Free Demo on Steam → Send us your feedback there or to us [email protected]
Not ready? Add to your Wishlist so you don't miss launch. BOT.VINNIK is watching the wishlist count. He has opinions about it.
BOT.VINNIK Chess Masters Academy is Coming Soon on Steam. Two developers. One Soviet robot. Zero excuses for inaccessible chess.