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Parents ask me all the time:
“What’s the best chess game for kids?”
But what they really mean is:
“Why didn’t it work when I tried to teach my child?”
Story Time Chess was created to solve that exact problem - by turning chess into stories, characters, and mini-games designed for beginners. Today, the Story Time Chess game is an award-winning way to learn chess for kids, and through our partnership with PlayMonster, it’s reaching families around the world.
But none of that was the plan… not even close.
You know when you’re a pro at something and people come up to you and tell you about their experience with it?
Parents do this to me every day with chess - and I genuinely love it. Because almost every story ends the same way:
“We tried… and it didn’t work.”
And I always kind of smile, because I know exactly why.
Chess is one of the oldest, most complicated games in the world. Plenty of adults give up trying to learn it, so when I first sat down with a group of three-year-olds, I didn’t expect what was about to happen - or more accurately, what wasn’t about to happen.
We held up a king and said, “This piece moves one step at a time.”
Blank stares.
Then came the most famous question in childhood:
“Why?”
“Umm… because it’s a rule.”
And I remember thinking at that moment… yeah, we’ve lost them.
Lesson over. In the chess game of teaching, we had just been checkmated.
So we reset to teach the king again.
Again, the question came: “Why?”
This time, my co-founder paused - honestly for a second longer than usual - and said, “Because he’s scared of everything… so he tiptoes.”
And just like that, everything changed.
Hook, line, and sinker.
The kids leaned in. They laughed. They cared. One of them even started tiptoeing around the board.
That answer changed everything - but not in the way we expected.
We realized the problem wasn’t that kids couldn’t learn chess. It was that we were teaching it like a rulebook instead of like a story.
So we went all in.
We turned every chess piece into a character and built a silly kingdom called Chesslandia. The king became King Shaky, who moves slowly because he’s scared, and the queen became Queen Bella, who zips around trying to help everyone (she’s the CFO of Chesslandia, Chief Friendship Officer). Each piece had a personality. Each rule became a story. Each lesson became a game.
Kids didn’t feel like they were learning chess.
They felt like they were entering an adventure.
That idea became Story Time Chess - a storytelling chess game for kids designed to make learning feel magical.
And at the time, we had no idea what was about to happen next.
Today, families all over the country start their chess journey with the Story Time Chess game, a storytelling chess game for kids designed to help beginners learn chess through stories and play (link to Story Time Chess game).
If you haven’t tried it yet, the easiest way to understand it is simple: grab a copy of the Story Time Chess game and play the stories with your kids (link to game product page). That’s where everything begins.
But something funny happens once kids start playing.
After a few stories and mini-games, they suddenly understand how the pieces move. Then they start beating their parents - and then they want more. More puzzles. More strategy. More challenges.
And that’s usually when parents come back to us.
This time asking something more like:
“Okay… now what do we do?”
That’s where Story Time Chess lessons come in. Through our online chess lessons for kids and in-home tutoring, we help children keep growing once they’ve learned the basics from the game (link to online lessons page) (link to in-home lessons page).
Because the game is just the beginning.
When we first launched the game, we just hoped families would enjoy it. That was it - no big expectations, no big rollout strategy.
But then something started happening.
The toy industry noticed. And then the awards started coming - one after another.
Story Time Chess has now received more than 15 major awards, including:
For a chess game for kids, it was surreal. We had gone from sitting on the floor telling stories to being part of conversations we never really expected to be in.
But nothing prepared us for what happened next.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Toy of the Year Awards are basically the Oscars of the toy industry. The biggest companies in the world compete every year - LEGO, Mattel, Hasbro, Pokémon.
And somehow, our little storytelling chess game was nominated.
I remember sitting there thinking, “There’s just no way.”
Then they opened the envelope.
There was a pause.
And then…
Story Time Chess.
We won.
It took a second to even process it.
Families and kids from around the world had voted, and they chose our game. That was the moment everything shifted. This wasn’t just a teaching tool anymore - the Story Time Chess game had become one of the most loved ways to learn chess for kids anywhere.
Soon after, families started asking, “Can you teach other games this way too?”
The answer is yes!
We created Story Time Backgammon, using the same storytelling approach - and it quickly began earning awards and recognition as well.
That’s when it really clicked for us.
Kids don’t struggle with strategy games. They struggle with how those games are introduced. Give them imagination, characters, and a reason to care, and suddenly everything changes.
As Story Time Chess kept growing, we hit a turning point - the kind where you can feel things either plateau… or really take off.
We had built something special. Families loved it, kids were learning, and the impact was real.
But we also had to be honest with ourselves.
We weren’t the company that could bring this into every home by ourselves.
Creating something great is one challenge. Getting it into the hands of millions of families… that’s a whole different game.
I remember walking out of one of our early conversations thinking, if we’re going to do this right, we need a real partner.
That’s when we met PlayMonster.
If you’ve ever played Yeti in My Spaghetti, 5 Second Rule, SET, or used Spirograph, you’ve already experienced what they do best. PlayMonster has spent decades doing something incredibly hard - turning great ideas into games that actually reach families.
Not just inventing games, but getting them onto shelves, into homes, and onto kitchen tables.
That’s a different kind of expertise, and we knew we needed it.
But what made this partnership feel right wasn’t just the company - it was the people.
Then we met their CEO, Jonathan Berkowitz.
And honestly, this is where everything clicked.
Jonathan didn’t just understand the product. He understood the why behind it. He talked about kids, about learning, about building something that actually matters. It didn’t feel like a typical business conversation.
That’s rare.
From the very beginning, Jonathan was personally supportive of what we were building and what this could become - not just as a game, but as something that could genuinely help kids.
At one point after a conversation, I remember thinking… yeah, this is the kind of partner you want to build with.
That alignment made the decision feel pretty obvious.
Today, PlayMonster licenses, manufactures, and distributes the Story Time Chess game, bringing it to families across North America and beyond. We focus on creating the stories, the characters, and the learning experience. PlayMonster brings that experience to the world.
And that’s what makes this partnership so meaningful.
Because it didn’t just help us grow.
It helped us reach the kids we built this for in the first place.
Today, because of that partnership, thousands of families discover chess through the Story Time Chess game every year.
They meet King Shaky. They laugh at Queen Bella. They play the games.
And suddenly… chess makes sense.
And honestly, it never gets old watching a child realize:
“Wait… I can actually play chess.”
For many kids, that’s just the beginning. Learning chess is where the magic starts. Playing consistently is where it comes alive.
Once they learn the basics, they want more - deeper strategy, tougher challenges, real growth. That’s when families continue their journey through our chess lessons for kids.
We offer both online chess lessons for kids and in-home tutoring, using the same storytelling approach that made the game work in the first place (link to online lessons page) (link to in-home lessons page).
Thousands of kids start with the game and continue their journey through lessons. Watching that transformation is one of the most rewarding parts of what we do.
Because it almost always begins the same way:
A silly story.
A laughing kid.
A chess piece that finally makes sense.
If you want to start that journey, the best place is simple: start with the Story Time Chess game (link to game product page).
Play the stories. Meet the characters. Watch what happens next.
And if your child falls in love with it the way so many do, our online chess lessons for kids and tutoring programs are there for the next chapter (link to online lessons page) (link to tutoring page).
Because sometimes the best way to teach something complicated…
is to turn it into a story. ♟️
