Shogi (also known as Japanese chess) is a chess variant that is extremely complex and challenging to play.

Players of international chess who like its complexity and challenge, may well find Shogi a great addition to the games they play.

However players of chess often find Shogi difficult to learn due to the use of Japanese text on the chess pieces.

To address this, Shogi Showdown is specifically designed to help players pick up the game via 5 key pieces of functionality-

1- A threat viewer that highlights any of the players pieces under threat

2- A move pattern viewer that enables the player to check any piece's full move pattern (their own or their opponents) at any time. This extends the usual valid moves highlights to include pieces protected and moves blocked due to intervening pieces

3- An auto-promote setting, maximising the promotion options for the player while prompting them to consider promotion only when the piece in question loses movement. Promotion is significantly more common and complex in Shogi and this functionality is extremely helpful to beginners

4- All piece sets have stand-out promoted pieces for ease of recognition

5- A piece transitioner. Believed to be unique functionality, this assists players comfortable with chess transition to Shogi by supporting a hybrid board of both old and new piece types, gradually enabling the player to transition to new piece types more in keeping with Shogi. This transition may occur over weeks, months or even longer and persists across games

The typical transition from chess to Shogi follows one of two routes-
1- Select an international chess style piece set and transition to Kanji pieces (simplified Japanese text), then if desired to Koma pieces (full Japanese text); or

2- Learn Shogi using Doubutsu pieces. In Japan these are used to teach youngsters Shogi and depict cartoon animals, then use the Doubutsu piece set to transition to Kanji and potentially Koma piece sets

Whichever route you decide, once Shogi gets a grip, it is a thrilling game to play.

Shogi Showdown has 10 playing levels, 8 piece sets and 11 board types to choose from, supporting beginners through to confident Shogi players.

Enjoy.

Note- the app does not teach the player the rules of Shogi, as these are freely and widely available online.