Quick facts
- AI strengh: beginner (PR 20-30?)
- multiplayer: yes, couldn’t try it
- tutor / analysis: no
- Price: free
- App store link
Summary: beautiful, smooth 3D UI hindered by a beginner-level AI and the unfortunate omission of the doubling cube.
The doubling cube is the latest addition to backgammon. Its exact history stays mysterious but it was created about 100 years ago, in the 1920s, and massively increased the complexity and the drama of backgammon matches. I believe I’m fairly good at backgammon except for my cube handling which is still way too conservative. This costs me many matches. Same goes for some apps who play a fair game of backgammon, but still I destroy them 15-3 or so because they have no clue how to use the doubling cube.
Now there seem to be people, even app developers, who seem to believe that the cube is an afterthought, something only there if you play for money, not really needed in backgammon. These developers don’t include the cube in their app and unnecessarily ask their app users to play a more boring, more peaceful backgammon variant.
Bg3D is such an app. It comes with a mindboggingly beautiful animated 3D UI that is without peers on my iPhone. It is simple and plays an okay backgammon. And it even includes a doubling cube in the UI:
That nice cube on the right side is, unfortunately, just polygons sitting there without any functionality.
Apart from that cube issue, the app is quite nice. Very simple to use, four difficulty levels, and a beautiful, beautiful UI with wonderful animations. For example, when all your stones are in your home board, the game will pan to center on that part of the board in a smooth animation.
Bg3D also features online playing, but probably due to a lack of users I could never establish a game between me and another player.
The other major problem for some of us is the lack of playing strength of its AI. On its hardest level it makes horrible mistakes; I win something like 4 out of 5 games against it, and I’m only an advanced player. I fed two games of me against Bg3D into Extreme Gammon (PC) and it rated Bg3D “distracted” and “beginner”, finding grave mistakes that cost it over 1 game’s worth of equity.
“I felt like destroying something beautiful” (Tyler Durden, Fight Club).
That pretty much sums up what this app is to me. Bg3D is free, it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t play full backgammon, and the cube-free backgammon variant it plays, it plays poorly. If you’re a backgammon beginner you will enjoy this beautiful app a lot. If you’re better, go somewhere else (unless you look for a beautiful app to destroy).