JustGammon
| title: | JustGammon |
| url: | link |
| download page: | link |
| license: | Donation |
| genre: | Traditional games |
| developer: | Pontes games |
| platform: | Android |
| release: | September 2018 |
| features: | text, sound, visuals |
| last edit by: | pitermach |
Description
JustGammon is another title coming to us from Pontes Games, who aren't new to making Backgammon games as they had provided us Pontes Backgammon for Windows a few years earlier.
If you've never heard of Backgammon before, it's an extremely old game (5000 years old if archeological findings are to be believed), in which 2 players take turns moving checkers across the board to safety by rolling 2 six-sided dice. The results of the roll dictate how far you can move a checker, and the 2 dice can be used separately to move 2 different checkers or you can use both to move a single one further. If the 2 dice land on the same number, then you get to make 4 moves instead of 2.
Things are made more complicated by the fact that if one of the opponents checkers lands exactly on the space of one of yours, it will be kicked off the field into an area called the bar from which it'll have to start its journey all over again. However, nothing is stopping you from doing this to your opponents checkers, or placing more than 1 checker on a space which makes it impossible to remove them from play. It's deciding what checker to move when what makes this seemingly simple idea so conplex, which might explain why it's been around for so long.
Many of the great things said about the Windows rendition of Pontes Backgammon apply here as well. The plethora of customisation options for sound effects, speech feedback and AI difficulty are all here. There are a few important differences however. Unlike Pontes Backgammon on Windows, which was purely an audio game, JustGammon also includes graphics in addition to being accessible with a screen reader. This coupled with the fact that you can play a game with 2 human players on one device, makes it one of the few games which is great to play with a sighted sibling, partner or friend. The visuals can also be tweaked to make it easier to see - you can choose between the traditional black and white checkers or switch to an easier to see red and green checker design instead. The game also keeps track of detailed statistics, so you can see how well you did across sessions. However, one thing missing from the Android edition is on-line multiplayer. JustGammon can be played either against an easy or hard AI, or against another person on the same device. You can also observe 2 AI's playing each other which might be great to learn new strategies on how to play the game.
JustGammon is free to play, but displays ads during gameplay. You can remove these ads with a 1-time €4.99 purchase, which can be made either in the game itself through Google Play, or if this is not possible in your country, by contacting the author to arrange another way. He will then send you an activation code that you can enter to remove ads. Other than this, there are currently no other restrictions in the free version.
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Updates: entry 2 Feb 22 and description 2 Feb 22