Upgrade SparkChess

SparkChess 18 is the latest available version

To upgrade your SparkChess, please provide us with the Transaction ID that you received when you purchased SparkChess from our website. In case you have misplaced the Transaction ID, you can retrieve it and have it sent to your registered email address.

Please note that this page is exclusively meant for upgrading SparkChess purchased through our website. If you have purchased SparkChess from a different store such as Mac Store, Windows Store, Steam, etc., you must check there for upgrade options.

If you haven’t purchased SparkChess yet, kindly proceed to the Download page to explore all the available platforms and payment methods.

What’s new in SparkChess 18

Correspondence Chess (Offline Challenges)

By popular request, we’ve added a whole new way to play chess in multiplayer! Offline Challenges are chess games you play with someone else at your own pace, without the constraints of time control. Log in, make your move, log out. Your opponent has 24 hours to move. If fast-paced online multiplayer is not your style, correspondence chess may be a better match.

Spoken Text and Voice Commands

This is a Premium Live -exclusive feature! If you want it, make sure you switch to a Premium Live subscription.

Now, when you turn on the sound, moves and other important text, such as statuses or lessons, are spoken out with very pleasing voices. So you’ll hear opponent moves like “Queen to D4 captures pawn” and “Checkmate, white wins” and the text in the chess lessons.

Moreover, you can move the pieces using your voice! When sound is active, a speech bar appears at the bottom of the screen. Click on the mic or press the Space key and say your move, like “king to f1”.

This feature is very useful in many scenarios, for example if you want to practice blindfold chess, or if you have reduced mobility, or just to have fun!

Coach improvement

Coach got more useful and will warn you about forks and pins, which is very helpful for beginners. Also, regardless of your AI opponent, your coach will be Guru, so his insights will help you win.

More engaging lessons

We’ve revamped the lessons in every way, with more clear text, more visual cues, and a very cool cinematic camera. The lessons are not only more engaging, but the camera helps you focus on the section of the board relevant to the discussion.

In SparkChess Premium Live with Sound on, the lessons are narrated as well.

Nicer 3D Board

The 3D board has better lighting and texture, noticeable especially on large screens.

User Experience improvements

We continuously improve the user experience and user interface based on your feedback. Whenever we receive a message from someone who has trouble using a feature of SparkChess, we sit back and think how we could make it better.

Some the improvements are designed to be invisible, you “feel” rather than see them. This year we modernized the whole UI behind the scene for responsiveness.

What you will notice is that it’s much easier now to use SparkChess with a keyboard. You can easily move the pieces on the board using the arrow keys and Enter. Navigating the other UI elements with the Tab key has been improved as well.

We hope you’ll enjoy playing SparkChess as much as we enjoyed building it! Your support for 16 years enables us to keep the development active.