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BGonline.org Forums
First stab at a backgammon app for the iPhone
Posted By: Tom Keith
Date: Friday, 31 July 2009, at 4:17 p.m.
Hi everyone,
A couple months ago, I bought a Mac computer with the idea of writing an iPhone app for backgammon. I just completed my first app. It's called iGammon. (Pretty boring name, I know.)
This was an experiment to see how well backgammon works on a small screen. I was pleasantly surprised. Moving the checkers is remarkably easy. It's hard for me to be objective because I've spent so much time experimenting with different input techniques, but it seems to me that using a touch interface on a small screen is easier than using a mouse on a large screen. It's easier to point to what you want, and there is less movement so you can play faster. (The one disadvantage is that a small screen is a little harder to see for those of us who need reading glasses.)
I tried three different user-interface techniques.
(1) Dragging. You move your checkers by dragging them where you want. This works well, but the surprise for me was that your finger is so large that you can't see what's behind it. To alleviate the problem, the checker being moved is highlighted with a four-pointed star that extends beyond the edge of your finger.
(2) Two-touch moves. You touch the checker you want to move, then touch the point you want to move it to. This is the default mode and I expect what most people will use who are not used to other backgammon software. You also have the option of "auto completing" forced moves. This is sort of "1-1/2 touch move" because the second move is always completed automatically.
(3) One-touch moves. You touch a checker and it moves automatically, first playing the larger number, then playing the smaller number. Each move takes one touch. This is the usual interface used with mouse-based backgammon software, so it may be the method preferred by people reading this. But I find I tend to use two-touch moves or dragging more often.
At this point the iGammon app is pretty basic. I wanted to see what was involved in learning to program for the iphone and how well the iphone works as a backgammon player. Conclusion? The iphone is a perfectly respectable backgammon machine and, after a somewhat steep learning curve, it is a lot of fun to program for.
(iGammon is free. It runs on an iphone or ipod touch. There is info on how to get it here: http://www.bkgm.com/igammon/ Or just search for "iGammon" in the App Store.)
So now I'm ready to start adding features. What features would you like to see in an iphone backgammon app? I'll try to add as many features as I can over the next couple of months. Thanks for any feedback you can provide.
Tom
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