About
Cognivo is a free, browser-based home for strategy and thinking games, built around one idea: the best way to learn a game is to hear it, play it, and train it.
Nine board games and puzzles. Chess, with a rule-validating engine and memory training; Checkers, with forced captures and kings; Reversi; Connect Four; Nine Men's Morris; Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe; Hex; and Dots and Boxes, each against a computer at three strengths. And Spy Games: cipher-breaking missions covering Caesar shifts, substitution ciphers, scrambled signals and dead drops.
People, without accounts. Play any board game against a friend with a private link, or run a tournament for a group of 3 to 32 from one room.
A small arcade, and the tools behind it. Ember and Delve are arcade games you play on your own. Their levels and art are made in the Labs (Level Lab, Sprite Lab and Animation Lab), which anyone can use at labs.cognivo.digital.
Learning built in. Every game has a lesson on its history, rules and strategy, from the Learn page, that you can try on the board or listen to. The explain how everything on the site works.
Cognivo is built for ears as much as eyes. In chess you can speak your moves — "knight to f3", "castle kingside" — and the board obeys, asking for confirmation when it isn't sure it heard you right. Every lesson section has a listen button, so you can absorb endgame technique while making coffee.
There are no accounts, no installs and no paywalls; ads shown by Google keep it free. Your preferences and best scores stay in your own browser.
Cognivo isn't made by a company or a team — it's an independent project built and maintained by a solo developer, working hand-in-hand with AI tools. That means a small, honest operation: features ship when they're ready, and when you get in touch you're talking directly to the one person behind it.
Questions, bug reports, or ideas for the next game? Reach the maintainer at support@cognivo.digital.