Something embarrassing happened to me this week. I was asked to review Backgammon King by Magmic and I have to admit it here, I never played the game of Backgammon before. Sure I’ve heard about it just like everyone I guess but I had no clue how to play. For the Backgammon pros here impatient to find out if this BlackBerry version is any good, bear with me for a few lines while I enlighten the non savvy Backgammon crowd.
Title Screen
The game supports single and mutiplayer modes

The rules are actually pretty simple: The objective of backgammon is to bring all your pieces, red or black in this version, into your inner board so that you can move into the bear-off game phase. After rolling the dice a player must move his checkers according to the number of pips showing on each die. A checker may land on any point that is either unoccupied or is occupied only by a player’s own checkers. You can also land on a space occupied by only one opposing checker. In that case, the opponent piece is captured and placed in the middle of the board on the bar.
In Game
The dots show you the possible moves

There are a few more subtleties but that gives you an idea of what the game is about. If you’ve played Magmic games before on your BlackBerry, you know you won’t be disappointed with the graphics. Backgammon King is no exception. The graphics are polished and it feels like a lot of development time has been put into this release. The game offers 3 modes: single player against the computer, 2 players sharing the device, and multiplayer online. I was especially excited at first to see that I would be able to challenge other players online. Unfortunately, it is hard to find some matches available, most likely because the game is still new. You end up creating your own game and waiting for another player to join. So sure you play online, but in reality, this amounts to moving a piece, and then waiting all day for your opponent to move a piece.

The game controls well. You click on the thumb wheel to roll the dice, and then cycle through only the valid moves. There are dots to indicate where your pieces can land. This is handy on a BlackBerry and keeps things moving. On the negative side, doubling cube is not available when you play against the computer. We would also have liked to see the ability to adjust the level of the computer in single player mode.
Screen 3
Easily accessible commands from your thumb wheel
Screen 4
A free registration is required to play online

You can try the game directly from your BlackBerry by visiting bplay.com. A 24 hour trial is available and the game can be purchased for $6.95

## This Article Was Originally Published by AllBlackBerry.com  

Read more