First, you need to know that English is not my first language. You can disagree with my ideas but please don't berate me because my English is not perfect.

About the app :

First, I think players should have been informed before the change (at least a 1 month delay). The way they do it, some players thought the sever was down or something and many people were confused about the situation. Also, maybe some players would have like to have the chance to download theirs games on the old site before it close.

Good things about the app :

I like that you can make a point just by clicking on it. It is faster this way. But in some case, it don't work well especially if you roll a set. If you roll 55 and want to make your 3 point by playing 13/3 (2) and click on it, this will make your 3 point with your 8 point. Then you will have to click on the 8 point to complete your move.

I like that you can bear-off 2 checkers just by clicking on the bear off spot. But again, it don't work well if you roll a set. If you roll 22 then want to play 4/off (2) and your 2 point is empty, it wont work. Also if you have 14 checkers bear-in and a checker on your 7 point then roll 61, you cant click on the spot to bear it off.

I like that the pairing are random because that way you can play famous player. It is the best thing about the app.

Thing I don't care about : we can play on our phone (which is a good thing) but I don't have a cellphone, so I don't care about that.

What I don't like :

We can't download our games anymore, unless we pay for it.

We can't chat anymore. Only dumb emoticons.

We can see our ranking but unlike the old version, we don't know how many players have an account, so we can't tell if we are in the top 10%, top 5% or whatever.

I really don't trust the 2 ply analysis. Again, we need to pay to have a better analysis.

In theory, I would like that you can change your board and avatar. But most of the boards have awful color that hurt the eyes and make me lost my concentration when playing. The pink/purple one is the worst of them all. I think the Neptune board (the one you got by default) is the best looking of all, so I don't have interest in collecting new one. Also, you need to pay for this, which I really don't like.

We will probably lose the players who don't like to play on the app.

The worst thing about the app is that you can't choose the stake of the game in the coin game. If you get pair with a player with more coins, you can lose all your coins in 1 game if things go really wrong (being gammoned on a 8 cube or something like that) Before playing backgammon, I was playing poker and I can tell you that playing the coin game is an awful bankroll management. You can go broke easily because you can't choose the stake. But I think that it was doing on purpose, so we are force to buy coins, which I really don't like, seem a bit like a racket to me. I will NEVER pay to have coins, I will play elsewhere instead.

I understand that the creator of the app want to make some money with it. If they want to do so, they need to offer real money game (from very small to high stake) with a reasonable rake (so a great player can make a living, or at least a reasonable hourly profit) If they do this, then I will be more interested in playing on the app.

Obviously, I am aware that our stupid governments (probably most of the country in the world) will be against that and will try to pass law against that (Memories from Black Friday still hurt) But we can't let our stupid government decide what we can do with our lives and money.

In conclusion, I think the purpose of the app is just a money grab for the creator. To have the same quality time with the same advantages as before we need to pay for what was free before. They try to make us pay to change an avatar (really ?) Marc Olsen even berate a guy with the basic avatar on one of his YouTube videos (that was borderline embarrassing) Again, if they want to make money with the app, they have to offer real money game with a reasonable rake.

I just deleted my link to there....they really messed it up. No more play from me

I think there’s been a lot of teething problems in the transition, and maybe database structure aha prevented some things from being done right.

However, this app is easier to use and understand for new players. If backgammon wants to survive and thrive, it needs to start getting in new players and particularly the youth. Maybe this can help

Hopefully in a few weeks everything settles out

I agree the transition was very badly managed and the site just became inaccessible without notice. You can apparently convert your original rating to the new site by sending an email to support, but you can no longer access the site to get your rating! I have emailed support with a guess at my approximate rating and asked them to convert it so I will see what happens.

The thing I hate most about it is the random selection and I cannot see a way to decline a game? On the old system I would not play games with players who had ratings much lower than I was. You only got a few points for winning and could lose a large number of rating points if they had a lucky streak. I also have a blacklist of players who deliberately let the game time out when they have lost, and players who hurl continuous abuse at you. I now cannot see a way to decline a game from the clowns unless someone can advise me?

All in all, not impressed but I will give it a chance.

Please let us know of you find an alternative site. as I have tried a few and Galaxy was by far the best.

I'm just playing on Heroes now (heroes.backgammonstudio.com). The interface is just as good, and finding a match is perhaps a little slower for now, but not bad (I've never had a problem finding one within a few minutes).

The old Galaxy was nice while it lasted -- it really felt like the "for backgammon players, by backgammon players" option, the lobby system created a real sense of community as you started to recognize people's names (IMO), and it probably contributed to growing the game over the past few years. But with the new Candy Crush style app there's really very little to distinguish it anymore. It's OK that Galaxy wants to target more casual players, and I understand that they want to start generating revenue. But when they lock downloading your match files behind an $8/month "star membership", and matchmaking flexibility is crippled compared to the old site, and you have to deal with the scummy "coins" system, I don't see a reason for serious backgammon players to use Galaxy anymore over other options like Heroes.

Hopefully, these things are temporary. Without a roadmap, it's difficult to guess their plan. BG over the last few years has put a lot of effort into the growth of backgammon, so for now we just have to wait. I can't see it not being a net good for backgammon, however.

You should try out Nextgammon. They basically copied the Galaxy website and I think they did a pretty good job - as far as the interface is concerned. Also, there are nearly as many people playing nowadays as on the Galaxy app. Plus: You get instant GNU analysis, the (old) Galaxy rating system and you can download your matches as .txt or .sgf files - but only the GNU .sgf format works properly.

Sounds good?

There is a downside: When you first log in you get a message, saying: They were down, lost lots of their data, even some of their source code. Old users have to reclaim their account (and their money!). As far as I can tell, something similar happened about six months ago, so I wouldn't trust them with money. Also, Nextgammon seems to belong to VIPgames.com / Casualino JSC / 52 Entertainment. For them, Nextgammon is small business and if it doesn't perform, it could be gone tomorrow. Just like the new Galaxy app ...