LMom,
We've only tried Fritz and Chesster #1, but DS has absolutely loved it. It's one of those games that's organized around a narrative, and you have to complete certain sub-games in order to move on in the story. The sub-games seem to me (admittedly, not much of a chess player myself) pretty terrific. The first games aren't even really chess games - they are games that get you used to the ways in which the various pieces move. (The bishop one, for instance, is a Pong-like game in which the ball moves along diagonals only and you try to get it to smash the toilet bowls that show up in random places. It's amazing how funny toilet bowls can be.) There is also a Pac-man like game. The only problem with these is that DS4's fine-motor skills aren't always quite up to the challenge.
After a while one gets to a stage in which you play games that are really organized around the various pieces - endgame exercises like capture the opponent's king with your king and one rook, for instance. Only after one has played all the sub-games can one go on to play a real game. And even there the level is so wonderfully low that it seems one can win pretty often just by making legal moves and capturing when possible. Lots of positive feedback. There are 10 levels of play, and DS is pretty motivated to go up the ranks.
I realize, re-reading my earlier message, what a curmudgeon I must sound like - getting frustrated because DS4 doesn't get the strategy of chess. I think the thing is that it's mostly frustrating because I can't figure out how his mind works: I thought I understood what would be easy for him and what would be hard, but then it turns out I was completely off. Ah, what a process this is...
BB
