Big Bang Chess - 2.3.4

i see how some people have been using this program with no problems, good for you, but my story is a little bit different.

i downloaded the Big Bang Checkers and Chess, after trying to play the checkers game on my 1GHz powerbook (os x 10.4.5) for a few minutes at awful, awful slow speed i gave up. clicking on the same checker for 5 or 6 seconds before you can finally pick it up, etc. it was like playing checkers in molasses

the problems didn't start until i launched Big Bang Chess. after the annoying countdown for the trial version (complete with a whiny 'aww' when i didnt click 'buy') it immediately crashed on me. everytime i'd relaunch (i only tried it 3 times) i noticed the 'number of launches left in trial period' had reduced. it was counting each individual crash as a successful launch. lovely.

naturally i tossed it and the other big bang products i had D/L'ed in the trash immediately.

BUT THE FUN DOESN"T END THERE...

i am currently running a completely clean install of Tiger on a new drive. it has only been up for a few days and was giving me zero problems. until this big bang chess garbage screwed it up. suddenly Mail.app, IChat.app, Addressbook.app and Adium.app were all dead. they would immediately crash on startup and give the same error that Big Bang Chess was giving in it's crash report:

Thread: 0

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x7a8a2400

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 ...apple.AddressBook.framework 0x93363708 c4_FormatB::Define (int, unsigned char const**) + 212


Gee, isn't that a coincidence.

finally, the only thing that fixed the problem after numerous attempts at trashing prefs, restarting, fixing permissions (took forever because so many of them were messed up suddenly) was replacing the Address Book.app with a clean copy from the hard drive i had just removed. i didn't need to replace the prefs or support files, it looks like it was the application itself that had been mangled.

i gotta say, i'm not a big fan of an overpriced shareware app that behaves more like a Trojan Horse. any application that can do that kind of damage to my Address Book is not coming near any of my machines again. that said, it looks like some people are using and enjoying it without trouble, but like they say, your mileage may vary. mine certainly did.

Luckily, I saved the original archive of v. 1.21 and can go back to that for now. Another possible freeware option is Sigma Chess. It has not been updated since early 2003, presumably it is ok with Panther. Freeverse is free to do what it wants, but I never liked it when a company turns a free program into a shareware/commercial product without saying they are contemplating doing that as time goes on. They should have made clear they were considering charging for it as new versions are developed.

They can charge for their chess game if they wish, the question for each user is are they willing to pay for a chess game.

Hi all,

Since Big Bang Chess 1.0 was released six months ago, we've been working very hard to improve it and think it's the best featured, most Mac OS X friendlly, easiest to network, master-level playing Chess game available.

In addition to the tons of new features, it is now part of a suite of games "Big Bang Board Games" (including Backgammon, Chess, Reversi, Mancala and 4-in-a-row) that will be available in retail outlets for $24.95. See http://www.freeverse.com/bbbg/ for more information. All those games are yours for the one price. My apologies that Version Tracker doesn't track that above, I'll make sure to post it in the description in the future.

We are a company, and that it is no longer "free" is pretty irrelivant; there was no promise or obligration. We released an early version to gather feedback and because we thought it was cool and stable enough that people would enjoy it. That version won't expire, so if you have it, nothing has changed. You're under no obligation and never were.

Anyway, we are one of the very few Mac-first game companies, and Big Bang Chess is a Mac product-- not a port of some year old PC game. We're proud of it, proud it won two Apple Design Awards, and very happy to have worked hard expanding it to include a suite of games, and bringing it to you for under thirty bucks. Try it, buy it if you agree it's way cool. Please. :-)

Thanks,

Ian
President, Freeverse.

You can still download the 1.2.1 free version at the following address, but I wouldn't be surprised if they remove it from their FTP server once they see this message [smirk] : ftp://download4.freeverse.com/Mac/BigBangChess1.21.dmg.zip . . . I was successful with getting it using RBrowserLite.

$25!? LMAO, you must be insane......

This whole bait and switch, freeware to shareware, tactic these companies are taking these days is getting really old.....