Backgammon - Board Games 12+

3.5 overall - mostly fun but feels a bit too rigged

Definitely mostly fun, I also paid to remove the ads because they are indeed very annoying. Few negatives: very skeptical of the die rolls adhering to natural/random probabilities. While not impossible, there are sequences of multiple doubles in a row back to back on both sides that are not infrequent. The opponent nearly always rolls perfectly such that they rarely end up with a blot. Also, when the opponent offers to double, the menu to agree or decline covers the board so you don’t have a way to consider based on your current position if you hadn’t immediately checked before the offer. But if you’re looking to learn or improve your strategy, it’s great for quick play and visualizing all your options.

Bad design, silly AI

If you enjoy the challenge of playing tic tac toe against a toddler while always going first, this is your game.
These comments all involve playing with the doubling cube being on (the only interesting way to play backgammon).
First, the game doesn’t follow the rules in that it allows the human player to see his roll prior to deciding to double. This is unfair to the AI player. At the same time, if the AI doubles the human player, the screen that pops up totally obscures the entire board so you better have a photographic memory to decide whether your position is such that you should accept.
The above problems seem to be one’s pretty easy for the developer to fix. The AI (or lack of it) is not so easy to fix. It simply plays in such a way that, while it follows the basic rules, does so in no discernibly strategic way. With some of its pieces still on the outer board but past all my pieces, as I am bearing off, the AI will allow itself to be gammoned by using its moves for pieces in its home board instead of bringing the outer pieces home. It appears to operate entirely according to pip count as it will take a double even while blocked from reentering the board just because it’s pip count is ten ahead. Under some circumstances it will even accept doubling at the end when it is mathematically impossible for it to win.
So if it’s really important to always win, this is the backgammon game for you.

Developer Response ,

Hello, we appreciate your constructive criticism of the game design and the AI's strategy. We understand the concern about seeing the roll before deciding to double and the pop-up screen obscuring the board. We'll take these into consideration and see what improvements we can make in the future. Regarding the AI's gameplay, we're constantly working to improve its strategic ability and will take your comments into account as we make further adjustments. We thank you for the review and hope you'll give our game another chance in the future.

This AL is programmed to win at all costs.

Would you call it random when the AL gets 95 percent of the opening rolls? When you can have all spaces covered but one and it hits that space 5 consecutive times? When it needs, say 6-1 when it’s the only opportunity to escape ? When it knocks you off with two spaces covered and magically you get those rolls? When it doubles you and you have 5 pips in space and again by magic you cannot knock it off but each time your pip is exposed it hits it…and even multiple pips.

You can have it trapped and it manipulates the roll so that you have to expose the ONE space and BOOM! It gives itself that roll. It does this predictably every game. I have had it trapped and it forced me to uncover the six, where I had 3 pips trapped on my end board. You guessed it: double sixes with no chance for it to win but it gave itself an additional 4 doubles! Utter nonsense and a joke!

It will give itself 5-6 doubles when you are winning by a wide margin to overcome you, with the last roll many times being a double which is what you can call. You will say to yourself “watch it give itself double——“. The developers say the same malarkey that they usually do, but this game is the ultimate cheating program.

Developer Response ,

Hello! We appreciate your feedback. We'd like to clarify that the dice rolls in the game are generated randomly. We understand that it might seem like the computer opponent more frequently gets favorable rolls, but this can be attributed to the inherent nature of randomness. Even though it may seem unlikely, streaks and patterns can emerge due to the random nature of the game. We hope this explanation helps clarify how the game operates. If you have any further concerns or questions, please don't hesitate to reach out via the Help section in the app's settings.