Zen Chess: Mate in One
Worth it · Short indie · 2018
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $0.99.
- Length
- 2.4h 3.3h to 100%
- Value
- $0.41/hr
- Reviews
- 88% of 465 positive
Watch this gameOne alert at a price you pick.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in 4 of its last 8 seasonal sales. Last cut ended 11 days ago.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
Zen Chess: Mate in One is a minimalist chess puzzle game. Solve mate-in-one problems in a beautifully designed chess board.
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, Graphics card supporting DirectX 9.0c, 102 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS.
The value story
It has been discounted 73 times in the 9 years tracked here. The median cut across all of them is 40 percent, about 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended 11 days ago.
Value puts it in the top 3 percent of the games it competes with. It is cheaper than 84 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 91 percent. Sudocats ($1.99, scores 97) outscores it, and so does Pictopix ($6.99, scores 95). Both sit among its closest neighbours.
More about Zen Chess: Mate in One
This site sampled 330 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 1 was written by a buyer who refunded it, sampled from reviews written April 2020 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 86 percent of the 162 reviews written there were positive, against 88 percent overall, and those are 42 percent of everything written about it.
At 2.4 hours it is a handheld-sized game, and Valve rates it Deck Verified.
The drop-off
74% start to 21% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Zen Chess: Mate in One scores 72/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/748970/zen-chess-mate-in-oneReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 28, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.