Get my men out of here, sergeant! (Backgammon Now Review)

Backgammon Now was featured (maybe just for me) on the Apple Store and got some fairly good comments there so I had to try it out.

The app has good graphics, a reasonable price for getting rid of annoying ads, and implements pretty much the full rules of Backgammon. I couldn't check whether they feature the Crawford rule, though. Because I win all my games with something like 32 points. And this brings us to the heart of Backgammon Now's problem: it has no clue about Backgammon. 

Have a look at this:

This is the position after three moves - on hard difficulty, which is the strongest that the app offers: black (Backgammon Now) rolled 65 and actually pulled off the right move (that happens once in a long while), moving 1/12. I rolled 32 and moved 13/11, 13/10. And then the app rolled a beautiful 22. It could have gone 19/21(2), 12/14(2), or maybe 1/5, 19/21(2). But of all available moves it picked 1-9, taking its back man and putting it into three direct hits.

And this is the general pattern of how BG Now plays: it wants to get the back men out. Now. It has no understanding whatsoever about slotting, making points, direct vs indirect hits. It just piles up its men, and when it can hit, it hit's. At least that's something it can do.

Here's a few more beautiful positions it got itself into.

 

Did I mention it doesn't know when to double as well? It seems its doubling rule is "if my pip count is smaller than his pip count I'll double or take". It kept re-doubling although it was trapped behind a 6-prime. 

 

Backgammon now handing an initial roll of 62. Moving the 1 checker doesn't achieve anything. A builder on 14 would have been great, or slotting 21. But no. I HAVE TO GET MY MEN OUT!

This is a typical position that we always end up with. I'm building a good base, while it just ignores its home and outer board completely. It then gets hit over and over and has half of its checkers behind.

 

I try to be fair when reviewing apps. I'm a computer scientist myself. I know the amount of labor and passion it takes to create an app. But either the developers themselves have no clue about Backgammon (then they shouldn't develop a backgammon or learn how the game works first), or they don't care about releasing an app with the worst AI on the App Store. Then they should go back to the drawing board.

If you're a total beginner then ... no, not even a total beginner should use this app, because it won't teach him anything but how not to play Backgammon.