Backgammon HD 4+

My last review was August 22, 2021, I achieved LEVEL 100, playing against the computer. I play at the hard level, I love this Backgammon HD. I have time to only play against the computer. I have 4 thousand games. I play a few games in my breaks through each day. Before the latest upgrade in July 2021, I was maintaining a 5 to 1 lead in sets against the computer. I am now still having trouble getting back to that my margin. I am now at a 4.5 to 1 lead. Many glitches have be fixed, and I love the randomness of the dice generator, and the computer’s play is more challenging. The game rewards good play, for example in supporting you scoring Gammon’s or Backgammon’s. However, play poorly you get crushed at this hard level. Don’t play the game when you are tired. This game forced me back to studying the game more. This is it! An inexpensive gem for my iPhone and iPad backgammon play. You must try this game. I’ll check in again when I get back to a 5 to 1 lead in sets. I will check for any new glitches in the game play and report those. Play on!

Excellent, intuitive backgammon app with some interesting variations (Old English, Nackgammon, and Acey-Deucey).
There are just a couple things I’ve noticed: you will never tie with the computer on the opening roll, indicating that the dice are not truly random, at least in that instance. True random rolls would have you occasionally tie and have to re-roll.
Also, another time late in a game, I had a computer chip on the bar with my 1, 4, 5, and 6 points closed in my home board, with a blot on my 3 point. The computer had all the rest of his checkers stacked on his own 1 and 2 points. The computer then rolled 3-2, but instead of using the 3 to hit my blot, it re-entered on the 2-point, leaving my blot there untouched, and then wasting the 3 it rolled due to there being no more legal moves. I thought the rule was that you have to use the larger number if both dice can’t be used. Further, I was playing on Hard mode, so that would be a colossal mistake, even if the rules allowed it.
Lastly, unfortunately I’ve had some difficulty playing multiplayer over Game Center, but I don’t think my issues are the app’s fault. Still, it would be nice to have a non-Game Center live multiplayer option.
Still, it’s a good app, and well worth the price. Treat yourself to an ad-free experience, and learn Acey-Deucey like our Navy Sailors and Marines are known to play.

When playing the game at the Hard level, don’t expect to be pitted against an expert backgammon player. The difficulty of that level is strictly due to the game cheating on its throws of the dice. You will consistently be faced with an opponent that throws doubles on the first or second turn of a game, that consistently gets precisely the combination of dice needed to capture one of your tiles, then throws exactly what it needs to block more of its home spaces while your attempts to get your captured tile back in the game are futile. With rare exceptions, you are consistently denied any opportunity of capturing any if the computer opponent’s tiles. And, in the unlikely event that you start winning by any significant margin, expect to throw ace-deuce until the computer opponent catches up or surpasses you, at which point it will offer to double the stakes, then throw double-6s or capture another of your tiles. Or both.

This kind of brute-force auto-leveling of what should be a completely randomized event thwarts any serious player from ever experiencing the genuinely competitive gameplay that a dice game should provide, and speaks to a cynical programming approach that elevates sloth to a sportsmanlike virtue.

Also, the ads are truly awful. Do I look like someone who wants to play a slot game, or save a morbidly obese king or comically voluptuous girl from catastrophe? Please.