Hi, I have a few ideas that I think will improve the game play of backgammon:
Make the doubling rule optional:
Backgammon played in the middle east doesn't have this option at all, so if you can let the player enable or disable this option, you'd have two variations of the game actually.
Add a sound when a piece is movable:
Say I got 1,2 and I have a piece at 8, if I can move that piece to 7 or 6 a sound would play when I highlight that piece, another sound would play if I highlight a place in the board that I can move it to. So if I take it from 8, a sound plays if I highlight 7 or 6 indicating that I can drop that piece there, I hope that makes sense. That's all for now. Looking forward to hear what you think.
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2. Rory101,
would probably easier just for a hint options. but peraps only make this useable if you are playing with a bot.
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3. Master-Chief,
I forgot one thing, I tried to reply yesterday but it didn't let me, it would be nice if there is a way for us to know the pip count.
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4. Aminiel,
Hello,
I have always been against indicatig exactly what is playable where. My goal isn't to make the game too easy, so that you can just press enter where it tells you to do so, without thinking. Backgammon depends a lot on chance but you still need to have a little strategy.
I did the misstake once with shut the boxes and look, everybody press enter, hardly knowing how the game works. They always choose the first option and in general they are right, it's most often the best one. At the end it became totally uninteresting and almost nobody plays. Sometimes on the forum and elsewhere, it's even a subject of mockery, targeting those so stupid people who just press enter.
Same reflection for pip count. You should be able to add two numbers yourself. Anyway, you are required to make two separate moves. If you did 5 and 3, you aren't allowed to directly move 8 squares if you can neither first move 5 or 3.
For the other suggestions, there, OK. I didn't know that the doubling rule was totally absent in certain countries and it dramatically changes your strategy if you can use it or not. So I'll certainly consider about making it optional. Thank you very much for this suggestion.
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5. bogdanmuresan,
Hello. I also have a suggestion regarding the backgammon. It is possible to turn the table? I find a little strange to play with black with the white pieces in front of me. In general, black should have the house board in the left side.
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6. Nikola,
Hello. While we are on the topic of Backgammon, I would like to bring up one modification, which if you have some time would be very appreciated. In the real game, the game never starts with a double roll. This is because at the start of the game, both players roll a die to decide who is playing the first turn. In this case, if both roll the same number, it is consider a draw and it is necessary to roll again. In addition, the first move always starts with those two numbers just thrown. For example, if I get a 5 and you a 2, I play the first move with the roll 5 2. Thus, it is impossible to get something like 4 4 at the start of the game. What do you think about introducing some form of typing a move? While I don't know of any standardized official notation for this, there doesn't have to be any. Backgammon is quite a simple game, so just the format of StartSquare-EndSquare should work. This would be especially useful when you get a double, and you want to move 3 tokens, instead of going 3 times back and forth you could just type something like 13-9 and that would be a lot easier.
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7. Master-Chief,
Hi Aminiel: Well yeah I agree about the thing of what piece is playable where, I just thought that it would make the game play a bit quicker. Even if such feture gets added, it doesn't mean that players will go just pressing enter and not thinking, as backgammon is a game of strategy, very different from shut the boxes. So if a player does that, most likely they will end up losing anyways. I don't really mind even if you don't add it, since the main reason of me bringing it up is just to make the game play a bit quicker. As for the pip count, theoreticaly I don't need a pip count to tell me if I am winning or losing, but it would be nice if I know the pip count regardless. Also thank you for accepting the idea of the doubling being optional, as playing without it makes the game a bit different when we talk about the scores and strategy.
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8. YNWA,
The doubleing cube has errors in it meaning it is possible to double points when you are close to winning and that's why people don't really like it.
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9. Cristina ,
Yes, nor in Romania it's that doubling rule. I often considered it weird just because some players used it only when they were sure of winning. Then it made the game to be no longer interesting.