Get in touch
Email corporate@cerebraenterprises.com. Tell us your device model, iOS version, Plain Chess version, and what happened. Please do not send payment card details or other sensitive information.
Your plans
Prices are in US dollars; the app shows your local price before you buy.
- Free ("Daily Chess"): one new game a day in any mode, the daily puzzle, and one hint and one threat check in that game.
- Plain Chess Coach: unlimited games, hints and threat checks, a review of every game, your full history, every puzzle and opening lesson, voices, and 300 AI Coach answers a month. $39.99 per year with a 7-day free trial for eligible new members, or $4.99 per month.
- Family: the full membership for up to six people through Family Sharing, for $69.99 per year.
- Lifetime: everything in the membership except AI Coach answers, $99 once, while the founder’s price lasts.
- Answer packs: 25, 75, or 250 AI Coach answers, for Lifetime owners, original buyers, and members who have used their monthly answers.
Your free game each day
Starting a new game in any mode uses the day’s free game, and a rematch counts as a new game. A game already going, such as a daily game with a friend, keeps going. Your free hint and threat check belong to that day’s game. Everything resets at midnight in your iPhone’s time zone. Your games are saved, and joining unlocks the whole history.
Free trial
New members may be offered 7 days free on the yearly plan, once per Apple Account. The app shows the trial and the price charged after it before you confirm. If you allow notifications, Plain Chess reminds you two days before the trial ends. To avoid being charged, cancel at least 24 hours before it ends.
Manage or cancel your membership
On iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions and Plain Chess. You can see your renewal date, switch between yearly, monthly, and Family, or cancel there. Deleting the app does not cancel your plan. Apple also provides help at https://support.apple.com/118428.
Family
Plain Chess Family is shared through Apple’s Family Sharing with up to five other people in your family group. To share it, the person who bought it opens Settings, taps their name, then Subscriptions and Plain Chess, and turns on Share with Family. Each family member then opens Plain Chess on their own iPhone, signed in with their own Apple Account. If the membership does not appear, they can tap Restore Purchases. The family shares 300 AI Coach answers a month; if Apple’s purchase information does not let us group a family’s members together, each person gets 50 AI Coach answers a month instead, and the plan in the app says which. Answer packs are not shared, and Lifetime is not shared through Family Sharing.
Restore your purchases
Use Restore Purchases in Plain Chess, in Settings or on the membership screen, with the Apple Account that made the purchase. It restores memberships, Family access, Lifetime, and ownership of the earlier paid app. An internet connection is needed.
Answer packs on a new iPhone
Answer packs are consumable purchases, so Apple’s Restore Purchases does not bring them back. Instead, our billing service keeps your remaining pack answers, and any founding thank-you answers, with your Plain Chess coach account token, which reaches your other devices through iCloud. On a new iPhone signed in to the same iCloud account, open AI Coach and your answers are there. If they are not, or you do not use iCloud, email us the purchase date and the order ID from Apple’s receipt email, and we will help you get them back.
How AI Coach answers work
Each successful AI Coach reply uses one answer, including follow-ups and questions asked out loud. Members get 300 answers a month; unused monthly answers do not roll over. Monthly answers are used first, then pack answers, which never expire. Lifetime owners and original buyers have no monthly answers and can use packs. The free plan does not include AI Coach. AI credits bought before Plain Chess 2.0 keep working, one answer per credit. AI Coach needs internet access.
Waiting for an AI answer?
Return to AI Coach with an internet connection to recover a pending reply. Recovering it uses no extra answer. Leaving the coach or backgrounding the app does not immediately return the answer. The app saves the reply before confirming delivery. A completed reply still unconfirmed seven days after the original request returns a monthly answer to its month, with the same expiry (up to ten a month); answers from packs are not returned this way. Contact us if you still need help.
Already paid for the app?
If you bought Plain Chess when it was a paid download, the gameplay you bought stays yours: every game, puzzle, review, hint, and lesson, with no subscription and no daily limits. Monthly AI Coach answers are not included; you can buy answer packs. If your earlier access is missing, try Restore Purchases and contact us if you still need help.
Founding members
If your yearly or monthly membership started before July 17, 2027, you are a founding member: you keep your price for as long as that membership stays active, with the full membership and 300 AI Coach answers a month. Founding yearly members also get 120 AI Coach answers once, as a thank-you. Plain Chess says thank you once, after you update or once your new membership is paid for. If you think you should have seen it and did not, contact us.
Games with friends and Quick Match
Play a friend and Quick Match use Game Center. Sign in when Plain Chess asks, or in your iPhone’s Settings under Game Center. Invite a Game Center friend, or send an invite in Messages, for a daily game with up to 3 days per move or a live game with a 5, 10, or 15 minute clock. Play a friend lists the people you have already played and, after you tap Show my friends and allow it, your Game Center friends; it never lists other players. If a live game’s connection drops for more than a minute, you can carry on as a daily game. Quick Match looks for a person near your level; if nobody is found within about 10 seconds, you play one of our rivals instead, labeled "AI rival". If multiplayer is unavailable, check Screen Time’s Content & Privacy Restrictions for Game Center.
Voices and asking out loud
Turn on voices in Plain Chess Settings, under Voices. The coach and your rivals speak with your iPhone’s built-in voices. With iOS 18 or later on an iPhone 12 or newer, turning voices on also downloads the natural voices once from the App Store, about 170 MB, best on Wi-Fi. Your iPhone’s own voices speak until the download is done, and Settings shows its progress and lets you stop it. The natural voices are made on your iPhone, so nothing spoken leaves it, and they work offline. While voices are off, your iPhone may remove them if it needs the space; turning voices on downloads them again. Captions always show what is said. To ask the coach out loud, tap the microphone in the AI Coach panel and allow microphone and speech recognition access. Speech is recognized on your iPhone; where that is not available, typed questions still work. Voices come with the membership, Lifetime, and the earlier paid app.
Your games and iCloud
Every game you finish is saved. When you are signed in to iCloud, your games sync to your other devices through your private iCloud; signed out, you see only this iPhone’s games.
Your privacy choices
Settings, Privacy has two switches: Share usage statistics (which features get used, and crash reports, under a random ID) and Ad measurement (Meta). Both start off for App Store accounts in the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. You can also decline, turn off, or delete shared onboarding answers in the app. Changing your practice goal does not affect access to paid features. For other privacy requests, contact corporate@cerebraenterprises.com.
Refunds
Request an App Store refund at https://reportaproblem.apple.com. Apple reviews refund requests under its policies and your applicable rights.
Company
Cerebra Enterprises LLC, 5000 Thayer Center Ste C, Oakland, MD 21550. Privacy: https://cerebraenterprises.com/plain-chess/privacy. Terms: https://cerebraenterprises.com/plain-chess/terms.