Review

Quick facts

• AI strength: advanced (PR 12)
• multiplayer: no
• tutor / analysis: no
• price: free, no ads
• app store link

Summary: perfect in its design and presentation, it lacks the features that a good backgammon app needs; its AI could use a few million more self-play training matches.

The computer game “Doom” kicked off the whole 3D first person shooter genre. In this classic, you start by selecting a difficulty level. On “I’m too young to die” the game is easy, on “Hurt me plenty” it’s fairly hard to beat, but real men (and women) played it on “Ultra Violence” for a real challenge. This analogy came to my mind when thinking about why a Backgammon like “Backgammon Machine” that doesn’t include the doubling cube is fun to play, but somehow stale compared to the real thing. Checker play offers plenty of fun, but only by including the cube you turn the game’s challenges from “hurt me plenty” to “ultra violence”. 

That said, Backgammon Machine is a special app. It’s really, actually, totally completely free. No ads. No in-app purchases, no virtual coins, no “watch this video for <feature>”. Free. And beautiful. Man this app is well designed in its pure and beautiful grey look. Steve Jobs would love it. I love it.

But its beauty doesn’t stop at only visual appearance. Its user experience is also top notch – the way you move your checkers, how you undo is just perfect. For example: you roll 6/3, move a checker by 6 pips. Now if you tap on this checker, the app will highlight two target places – 6 back (to undo the 6) and 3 back (to turn the 6 into the 3). Very clever, have not seen this anywhere else.

Concerning features, this is pretty much it. You start a game in “match to 1 pt” mode. You make your moves (enjoyable). It makes its moves. You start another game in “match to 1 pt” mode. And so on. No tutor/analysis, no setup, no matches, no doubling, no exporting, no manual dice, you get the picture :-).

Oh yes, and the UI is so clean that it doesn’t show a pip count. The joys of counting pips by hand (strengthening my “criss-cross pip counting skills”).

But maybe that’s enough. Play against a strong, free AI can be fun, at least for a casual backgammon in between meetings or such, even without matches, without doubling. So all boils down to the question: is the AI any good? The answer is yes and no. It certainly plays a stronger game than the AIs that have been hand-crafted in a rush. It certainly plays a weaker game than then high-end AIs of XG, BGBlitz, BG NJ.

I‘ve played 18 games so far, and lead 12:6 against the AI. I feel I was fairly lucky sometimes, but I‘ve also seen it going for significant blunders. For example, in a situation where I‘m bearing off against 1 or 2 trapped checkers it moves those trapped checkers home far too early (considering it doesn‘t treat a gammon as 2 points it should wait it out as long as possible). Or take this one:

This 6/4 opening, according to XG2, is nearly a blunder (losing 0.072 equity). This is way too loose, it will be hard for me to roll something that doesn’t hit, and hit on a point I want to make. Not something an app that claims to play at nearly master strength would do. When checking the app for my big ranking table, XG2 concluded that it plays on strong expert level (nearly world class) with a PR of 5.2. But keep in mind, this app can’t blunder difficult doubles, because it can’t double. I’ve seen a number of apps playing a strong checker game, but blunder with doubles (and so do I).

Nevertheless this app plays a good game of Backgammon, certainly better than many of the “beginner” level Backgammons out there, and as it’s fast, fun, free and beautiful, it’s great for a fast, casual game of backgammon.

So, just install it and have fun. Just don’t expect too much. I hope the author invests more into self-playing to improve its strength, and into a few more features. Matches would be great.

Update – September 2022: played another few games against it, recorded/analyzed with XG2, and have to adjust its rating to “advanced” with a PR of 12. The games were difficult, and the Machine made its share of blunders, some very severe like this one:

Every beginner will find out that the 44 is a wonderful way to bring this game home safely. You can get all three blots to safety, and the one on 17 is safe for now; should I roll a 6, the 17 blot can help hit one of the blots. So 12/4 7/3 10/6 is the obvious move. The Machine decided to do the opposite and moved 17/5 10/6, leaving a direct hit on 7 for no good reason (and an indirect shot on 12), a -0.184 blunder. And as the dice gods want it, I rolled 65 and won the game.

I’ll play some more and see if the rating changes.