Backgammon Reloaded 3D is actually fun

This one is a serious underdog in the App Store. It has „no graphic designer ever touched this game“ written all over it, starting from the ugly icon to the way you navigate through the UI, and even the 3D rendering. Clearly this is the work of one guy who likes to develop software and not of a team with a UX designer, and it shows everywhere. Correspondingly the game has few downloads and only 3 reviews on the App Store so far.

However, the game is a) absolutely and totally free. I‘ve not seen any ad ever. There is no in-app purchase. It‘s just free for you and me to enjoy. And b) it‘s actually a lot of fun to play for a while. Why? Because the game keeps throwing better and better opponents at you, and you have to beat one to get to the next. Sadly I‘ve beaten all of them soundly, which frankly left me a bit disappointed - neural network AIs normally destroy me but this one still made gruesome blunders, even after 1 million training matches.

The UI. It‘s 3D, it looks and feels fast, but the buttons, the font, everything looks like the kind of app I would design, not the kind of app a UX guru would come up with.

Also, BG Reloaded 3D features pretty much the full rule set of backgammon, including money games, matches (only to 5 points though), doubling cube, undoing moves, confirming moves. I haven‘t come across the Crawford rule yet and wouldn‘t expect it to be there, though. It also offers an online mode but so far I‘ve not tested this one yet.

The only minor issue here is that in BG both players roll one die, and the player with the higher roll starts the game with this roll. In BG Reloaded 3D, the player with the higher roll starts by rolling again. 

I've enjoyed playing the game for a few hours, even if I can‘t really understand why a well-trained neural network starts a game like this:

This is what the second best engine does after an opening roll of 4-1. It plays the beginner move 13-8, which doesn‘t leave a blot but wastes all potential for building a good board. 13-9, 24-23 or 13-9, 6-5 are moves that every reasonably good player prefers.

So if you look for a really free backgammon that offers you a few fun hours, and don‘t expect too strong an opponent, look no further. Particularly if you hate the strong engines because you believe they cheat, this might be a good app for you.

If you look for an app that challenges you and helps you improve your backgammon, this app is not good enough for you. XG ranks me as intermediate (14,21); I played a game to 3 points against every single AI that this app offers, and I didn't lose a single game. Not one. And it never was close - the game just plays way too conservatively, doesn't make points, doesn't advance its back men, so all games ended with some men trapped behind a large prime.