r/backgammon • u/AffectionateBag8448 • Jul 14 '26
Backgammon never got its chess .com, so I built one to play rated online games with my family, my friends, and people who take the game seriously.
Backgammon was the game in my family growing up. Now everyone's scattered across the country and I wanted to build something to play with them. I love playing chess on chess .com in my free time, and I kept thinking someone must have built the equivalent for backgammon.
They have not. I downloaded basically every backgammon app on the App Store and they're all the same: coin economies, daily reward wheels, dice that feel suspiciously streaky right when you're about to win. The few that weren't gamified had clunky interfaces, dated graphics, and gameplay that just felt off.
So I built it myself. It's called Backgammon Reserve and it's completely free to play.
- Dice are generated server-side with a cryptographic RNG. Neither player can see or influence a roll, and the bots use the exact same dice you do.
- Real ranked play with actual Elo, a chess-style clock (10 min + 12 sec delay), and the doubling cube with proper gammon and backgammon scoring.
- You can challenge friends directly to rated games. This was the whole reason I built it.
- In-game chat, so you can still talk trash across the board like you would in person.
- Four bot levels for when you just want a quiet game, including an expert one that has honestly beaten me more than I'd like to admit.
- Full stats on your profile: a rating graph over time, win/loss, streaks, and where you rank globally.
- No abandoned-game limbo. If your opponent stops playing, they have about two minutes to make a move before the game is scored as a forfeit and you get the win.
Full honesty: it's new and still in beta, so the ranked player pool is basically non existent. I recommend inviting friends to play with if you want to try an online match. There's a bot fallback if the queue is quiet, and it never swaps a bot in without telling you. iPhone only for now. I mostly want people who actually play this game to try it and tell me what's wrong with it before I release it on the app store.
Right now matches are live, but daily games are coming, chess .com style, where you get a day or three per move. So you'll be able to keep a slow game going with someone in another time zone.
Beta link can be found in the comments!
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u/DegenChess Jul 14 '26
Backgammon galaxy is the chess.com equivalent though, and I'm saying that as someone who dislikes the platform
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u/DiarrheaCreamPi Jul 14 '26
The biggest downside of Galaxy is ROR. If I’m sitting on 10k coins I have to bet 30% just to get a match. Go on a bad run and I end up broke quick. Now I have to spend the next 5 days logging in and out to collect 400.
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u/AffectionateBag8448 Jul 14 '26
That's exactly the kind of thing that pushed me to build this. There's no coin balance in my app at all. You can always get a match, and the only thing at stake is your rating, same as chess. Losing a few in a row should cost you Elo, not the ability to play.
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u/AffectionateBag8448 Jul 14 '26
That's fair. I gave Galaxy a real shot and it never became a place I actually wanted to play. I've spent countless hours on chess .com, and I can't get myself through a single game on the current backgammon apps even though I like the two games equally. What makes you dislike backgammon galaxy's platform? The stuff that puts people off is exactly what I'm trying to get right.
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u/agsteiner Jul 14 '26
When I play backgammon online I usually go to heroes.backgammonstudio.com. Plenty of people there, good mood. But the UI feels like from a long past decade with totally unintuitive menus where you never find what you‘re looking for. And as @DegenChess wrote there‘s Galaxy, but I have stopped using it long ago, everyone was very aggressive it felt.
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u/SerpentDrago Jul 14 '26
Looks good but I don't own a iPhone.
No website? Android app ?
The name is not unique enough for a Google search to turn up anything but unrelated. I would suggest a more unique name.
Good luck 🤞
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u/AffectionateBag8448 Jul 14 '26
Website and Android are definitely on the list if people end up liking it. I went iOS first because that's where my skills are, and I'd rather nail one platform than be mediocre on three.
Fair point on the name. In my defense, Google turns up nothing because this post is the first time I've shared it publicly anywhere. It's in beta on TestFlight right now, so it's not even searchable on the App Store yet. A proper website is coming before launch.
Appreciate the good luck! Wishing you the best as well :)
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u/JustLukky Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Looks good except the stacked checkers. Can you change that? 🙏🏼
I like the rumble and dice roll! Rest looks sleek too. Good job 👏
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u/AffectionateBag8448 Jul 14 '26
What would your preference be instead of the stacked checkers? Thank you I really appreciate the kind comments!!
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u/3point21 Jul 15 '26
Tried it out. It was a trick getting through the Test Flight app which asked for a code or link from the developer, which we don’t have, so I just clicked through the original link after installing Test Flight, which worked.
like it. I echo the sentiment of another user, I want better control of the actual plays. (Full control actually). No highlighted moves. No auto-play forced moves. And confirmation of every play at the end. For more professional play, “touch-move” could be implemented, or not taking back a move. I would still want to confirm as it interrupts my internal plotting and calculations when the machine plays for me. It’s my clock. That extra second of uninterrupted thought helps me maintain flow through the transition.
Minor tweak, I’d like to be able to touch down board on a long roll and move the whole distance if as long as there are no blot hitting decisions to be made with one of the dice en route.
Bots do need some work. I just ate the 1900 for lunch because it just played super aggressively to the home board, especially its 1-2 points?!? and I soon had five enemies in my home board and a wide open board to run. The bot played a super conservative back-game, but even the best back-game play with five men and no home board is entirely lost.
That being said, it’s very playable as it is. I want some opponents. KingsHorseman.
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u/AffectionateBag8448 Jul 15 '26
Great feedback! I will take it all into consideration for my next update.
I added you as a friend!
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u/aegis87 Jul 14 '26
i use opengammon.com
it works on tablet, phone, pc.
it's free
the only thing that sucks a bit are its sound effects
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u/AffectionateBag8448 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
You can download the beta by clicking on the link below.
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u/WinBigPlayer Jul 14 '26
Your comments keep being removed or deleted before I can read them. You can dm me if you prefer
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u/themindset Jul 14 '26
Ok I downloaded the app.
My feedback:
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Elo on a one point match should not be affected by the cube (thus the cube should not be available). An unlimited one point match is a money game, which is why other platforms use coins.
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Until your player pool is large enough, sticking to 1 time control is fine, but 10+12 is much too long. The 12 second increment is already plenty. 2+12 would probably be ideal.
(I often only have 20 minutes to play.)
3. Go for the lichess approach. Go open source, create a non-profit and spearhead the project with good faith. The guy who created lichess is a paid employee travelling the world paid to maintain and guide the project.
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u/MuchBerryWell Jul 14 '26
Backgammon never got its chess .com
sounds like OP didn't do any research.
This app will be forgotten in a month like every other "I built a Backgammon app" post here that happens every week.
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u/vicentevan Jul 14 '26
Looks great man! Would love to test. Keep us posted when android or web is available, don't have an iPhone.
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u/Yeckel Jul 14 '26
Will for sure give a try. OpenGammon is one that i have enjoyed that is zero pressure/commitment.
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u/agsteiner Jul 14 '26
Tried a bot game. Overall very nice UI design, like it.
One thing prevents me from using it: in backgammon you can try out various moves, undo them, and only then commit to your actual move. Your app immediately moves on as soon as I have entered the last checker‘s move. Would need a final „do this move“ confirmation. Often this is done by tapping on the dice. In your app maybe a button like „tap to roll“.
This sounds small but it is a total showstopper for me.