Hi all,

I try to make a sort of requests to the Backgammon NJ app for Apple. I start with the things that can maybe improve the app itself.

I AM TALKING ONLY FOR TURN BASED VERSION. Kindly read all paragraphs.

1) POSSIBILITY TO SKIP FORCED MOVES

I played a lot on Dailiy gammon. There there's the possibility to play many moves in sequence because backgammon has many routine moves, which are pre-viewed by an intermediate engine. Clearly if opponent at some point of the sequence make a different move the sequence stops and hero has to play according to the new position. This speeds up a lot the games: by experience I'd say that games are at least 40-50% faster.

I don't wanna say that it should be implemented on BGNJ, but at least implement the possibility to skip automatic or forced moves. Between experienced players it will be chosen in an instant and for the random players simply keep things as they are.



2) DREAM: ANALYZE GAMES ON THE IPHONE

Ok, is great that you write the ER at the end of the game. But can you implement the possibility to rewiew the game on the phone, as on the PC, with the possibility to spot errors by NJ engine? It would be great. It's boring to send games by email, download and put them on XG... finally if you can put even the "luck one player had" it would be interesting.

3) NEXT GAME BUTTON MORE CLEAR

Ok, there's the tap tap mode, or the swipe mode to go from a game to another. But it's completely counter-intuitive. Simply after a move make a "Next game" button appear, one clicks on it and it's simpler to skip to another game. No need to tap 20000 times somewhere in the top of the board as it is now (at least on my Iphone)


3) TAKE A LOOK AT XG MOBILE BOARD.

BGNJ has a fine board but for me it's aesthetically ugly, patriculary when there are more than 4 ceckers on a point. That's not a huge minus, but take a look at XG mobile board and see if you can take inspiration by that "statue of perfection".

Now take some compliments:

1) It's a pay backgammon app. That's great. You completely eliminate random players that drops tons of games and inflate elo at random. It looks like gridgammon environment, full of interested people. Great job.

2) A plus: No elo change for droppers. That's great: now elo rating is not arassed by randoms.

3) You can find a lot of (good) players even in turn based mode. I have 50 active games on my phone (even if you said that the limit is 30) and some of them plays at 6-7 ER. It's an interesting challenge when you play against serious regs.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for your comments. It seems that you like things a very defined way. If DailyGammon meets your needs, you may want to ask them to develop a version that works better on mobile devices. We use someone else's server (Apple's Game Center), whereas DailyGammon runs their own server, so we have a lot less control over what can be done. Turn-based is also a small part of BGNJ. Most play offline or real-time matches. Thus we concentrate our efforts on those things. We're not saying never, but to be honest, turn-based is lower on our priority list, and we have less control over what can be done. We've been working on an update for a while, and it's close to release.

Some comments below:

The next update will be released soon. It will have an analysis feature available for in-app purchase.

Is tapping twice or swiping once on the status meter really that much harder than tapping once on a Next button? Agreed that it's not as obvious as a Next button though.

Are you talking about the width to height ratio of the board? If so, we responded to your post in another thread about why the width to height ratio of our board on your iPhone 5S is the way it is.

In turn-based, when a match ends prematurely for any reason (7 day timeout, player aborts, etc.), partial Elo is calculated based on each player's equity at the time the match ends.

Wow, 50 matches is quite a lot. Apple must have increased the limit from 30 to 50. We find out from trial and error like everyone else.

I am a massive fan on Backgammon NJ. Been learning to play using this App and have started now playing online.

I look forward to the analysis in game purchase being made available. Another feature that I would like to see is the option to set up specific positions and play them out/roll them out.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks, Fitz5487! For our analysis feature, you won't be able to set up positions, but you will be able to play from position. In a roundabout way, you can kind of do what you want. If you play a match with an interesting position A, you can analyze the match as many times as you want and play from position A each time. You'll also be able to save selected (or all) match files permanently so they won't get deleted after 20 matches.

Also, if you want to set up positions, XG Mobile Backgammon has that feature. You may want to try it if you haven't already. It can't hurt to have more than one good BG app.

I looked for this XG app last night but couldnt find it. Is it possible that it is not available in the UK?

I didnt know about saving positions - that is even more useful.

Glad I came across this forum by chance. Usually only lurk on here for the Poker but now find backgammon much more entertaining.

It's not exactly saving positions, per se. When you analyze a match, you can see a list of moves for the entire match, jump directly to any position in the match, and then choose to play from that position if you want. You'll get a better idea once you see the feature in action.

We just finished the iOS update a few days ago and submitted it for review. So the analysis feature is going to be in the iOS versions soon. We'll be working on the Android (Google Play) version next, but it will be a while.

XG Mobile was taken off the iOS App Store so that the developer could fix some issues. I could have sworn it was back on the store yesterday, but maybe he took it down again. It should be back at some point.

I've been a forum member for a while, am mostly a lurker too, but I try to respond if there's questions about BGNJ.

I don't have any suggestions- I just want to mention that the bg nj- app is grat and I enjoy it very much. It's a really interesting training to play matches against it, because it could f.e. double you when it's actually too good and commits also other errors- but nearly allways playing at leat a 2.x pr. It feels like playing vs. a very strong human, not against a bot.
TY for this great prog!!!

Thanks, Donby. It's always nice to hear feedback like that!

By the way, the BGNJ (non-HD) update has been released with new features. There are a few issues that we're aware of and that will be fixed in the next update:

• The in-app purchase Store doesn't display for some countries.
• The resignation confirmation message is incorrect when the computer resigns. The confirmation message is wrong, but it will actually still do the resignation for the correct player.
• The board doesn't display correctly for iPhone 6 Plus users who have Display Zoom turned on. A temporary workaround is to turn Display Zoom off.

All of these issues will be fixed in the next update, coming very soon. The HD update is also coming soon.

I'm also a fan of this app and use it to play matches online. Clean interface, easy to use and matches are found quickly.

I have noticed that when I load a game played on NJ into XG, the PR that the 2 programs give can sometimes differ by quite a margin, but that's my only criticism so far.

Hi bleep69, thanks for your comments. BGNJ calculates ER (error rate), and XG calculates PR (performance rating). The calculations are different, so the numbers will differ.

ER is a statistic introduced by Snowie. You can read about how it's calculated here on our forum:

http://z15.invisionfree.com/bgnj/index.php?showtopic=11

PR is a statistic introduced by XG. You can read about how PR is calculated on the XG support page under "Can I see the Snowie Rating?":

http://extremegammon.com/support.aspx

Ah, that explains it, thanks.

I make congratulations to NJ backgammon developers for the new analyze feature.

It is simply perfect and easy to use, and it is very clear and precise.

A nice feature, needed by interested players. GG.

Fllecha, thanks for the feedback. It's nice to hear that the analysis feature works the way you expect it to.

Agreed about the analysis module. I know Ive already expressed my adoration for this software before but this new add on is very much worth the money. Learnt more about my own game from a few analysises of my own play in 30 minutes than spending the same time watching games on youtube.

Just a quick question as I havn't really looked into this notation for errors in too much detail before - if the move shows no errors does that mean i have found the most optimal play or can multiple plays still show no errors... Only the particularly bad ones? Some sort of explaination in app for newbies like like myself might be good - like what the colours mean. theres some pretty decent explainations of play already in there so this wouldnt hurt.

Finding it particularly interesting when i find a spot i have recognised what the program suggests to be the best play but opted for something else. I always thought it was good but now definitively a must have App for any player!

In answer to your questions:

• If the move shows no error, that means that it's considered the best move by the BGNJ expert-level AI, and thus the error = 0. There can also be other moves for that match position that are equally as good, also with error = 0.
• For the colors in the move List, we used the same ranges as the default values in GnuBG:
  • Red: 0.16 <= error
  • Blue: 0.08 <= error < 0.16
  • Green: 0.04 <= error < 0.08
  • Black: error < 0.04

At any position, you can also view Match Info to see a list of the top 10 moves.

We try to be thorough in the app help, but it gets harder as the app becomes more and more complex. But feel free to ask any questions.

After your previous post I understand the direction of developing the software.

But I give you this idea on the analyze feature:

During a game sometimes arises an interesting position in which the correct move isn't clear. I make a screenshot of that position and then, if I find the time, I put on XG and I analyze it. But that's a boring work.

I would ask to put a button that marks a position (with a red M somewhere in the screen) and later, when one analyze the game with the new features, can go in the maked position and see if the decision was correct.

I belive it's really simple and useful, because most of the time I make correct decision and I can't review them because it's not marked as an error

Btw a little brag: I reached first place in the leader board of turn based. Currently elo 1797... Maybe first player to reach 1800

Haha congrats. I agree about the marker. That would be a great idea.

Hi Njsoftware,

Where do I turn off the doomswitch in the online settings? Please see below for a screencap of the type of problem.

Great app otherwise.

Hi Wamy,

This is why some call backgammon the cruelest game.

Since you're close in skill with your opponents, it's 50/50. Even if you were rated 200 Elo above your opponent, your opponent would still have a 30-40% chance to win in matches ranging from 15 to 3 points in length. Longer match lengths usually yield better results based on skill. A larger sample size helps too.

You might find this calculator helpful. It can calculate the "Probability of underdog winning" based on relative Elo rating, experience, and match length:

http://www.netadelica.com/bg/fibscalc.html

50\50s just ain't what they used to be

Not saying 50/50 will be exactly even. More that 50/50 can easily skew either way over a small sample size of low match lengths (~20 matches of 3-5 pts or less?). At least it's all just for fun.

This game seems a bit volatile for stable mental health.

I play at 7.5 ER and After 120 3-point matches i win only 63% of matches against people that play on average at 17 ER(most of them play at 20-30 ER, never doubling in any game, not even when they are 2-1 post crawford, and they always hit gammon obv). Either you accept it or you play chess

I've been playing the full version of Backgammon NJ HD on the iPhone for about a month. I really enjoy the ability to play online against mostly decent opponents and have some questions/concerns regarding online play.

When I play at home I always enable Wifi. When I'm out and about I make sure Verizon LTE is up before I start.

Is there a way to tell if a disconnect is a problem with your Internet at your end, the server end (i.e., Apple game room), or your opponents end? Is there a way to tell if your opponent intentionally disconnects? I'd pay a bit for an App that helps with this.

I'm set up for single games online. Am I missing some setting or is the Jacoby Rule simply not used? If not will it be implemented soon? Thought this was standard more or less.

Regards,

- middlebridge

PS Like to play late at night before bed (and sometimes fall asleep during my turn - sorry about that). Will a good backgammon App ever be developed for the Kindle Paperwhite?