Last updated on January 19th, 2026 at 07:00 pm
Little Go – Board Game Review
Little Go is a Board/Strategy game from Patrick Naf Moser, first launched in 23rd December 2011.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 119+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Little Go Stand Out
Little Go is a free and open source iOS application that lets you play the game of Go on the iPhone or iPad. You can play against another human (on the same device), or against the computer. The computer player is powered by the open source software library Fuego (http://fuego.sf.net/). The minimum requirement for running this version of Little Go is iOS 15.0.
Features:
- Board sizes between 7×7 and 19×19 (start a new game to change the board size)
- Let the computer player suggest a move or immediately play the move for you
- Calculate the score at any time during the game (area scoring is the default, territory scoring can be selected at the start of a new game)
- Adjust the computer's playing strength and resign behaviour by selecting from a number of presets, or by fine-tuning advanced settings
- Play even games, or games with 2-9 handicap stones (fixed stone placement)
- Select from 5 pre-defined rulesets when you start a new game, or adjust game rules to your preference (komi, ko rule, area/territory scoring system, number of passes to end game, resume play by alternating/non-alternating play, four passes end game)
- Place arbitrary black and white stones for initial board setup before a game starts
- View board positions for moves played earlier during the game
- View and create game variations
- Discard moves (aka "undo")
- Display move numbers and coordinate labels
- Zoom & scroll board
- Create and edit board and move annotations (e.g. good/bad move, good position for black/white, etc.) and add textual notes to a position
- Mark intersections on the board with symbols, markers and labels, and draw arrows or lines on the board
- Display player influence (aka territory statistics) for an estimate who owns an area
- Computer vs. computer game for entertainment
- Save & load games to/from the archive
- Use file sharing to transfer saved games from your iOS device to your computer, and vice versa
- Import/export game files from/to other apps on your device (e.g. Mail, DropBox)
- In-app user manual
- Submit bug report email from inside the app (yes, this is a feature :-))
- For the technically inclined: Watch what happens behind the scenes when Little Go and Fuego talk to each other over the Go Text Protocol (GTP)
Your contribution in any form (coding, UI design, testing, bug reports, creating an app video preview, website design) is welcome – please contact me or visit the support website to find out more.
A note about the project state: Several years of development have gone into Little Go since its inception in January 2011. The app now has a feature set that is, I believe, quite nice :-) for a free program. My main focus therefore lies on fixing any remaining bugs (of which I am sure there are plenty) and keeping the app running under future versions of iOS.
Little Go is released under the Apache License 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Little Go is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 12th May 2024
Recent improvements include:
This is the Little Go bugfix release 2.0.1. It contains a fix for a bug that caused the app and Fuego to become out of sync when a game with handicap was started, or when a game with black or white setup stones was loaded from the archive (#430).
The previous release was the Little Go feature release 2.0.0. An overview of the changes follows, for more details read the in-game Changelog.
Features
Support for game variations (#380):
- The app now supports displaying game variations. For that purpose a new view was added at the bottom of the Play tab. The new view displays the tree of nodes formed by all variations of the game.
- The tree view can be resized, zoomed and scrolled, and you can tap on any node to change the game board to display the content of that node.
- The app also supports creating new game variations: Go back to an older node and play a move and the app will automatically insert a new game variation.
- A number of new settings were added under "Settings > Tree view" and "Settings > Game variation" that let you control various aspects of how the tree view is rendered and how game variations are inserted.
- If you do not want to work with game variations you can also use the settings to hide the tree view completely and disable creation of new game variations.
Improvements and changes
User manual overhaul (#419):
- The user manual has been rewritten from scratch, complete with icons, illustrations, a few animatons and hyperlinks.
- Besides the in-app version of the user manual there is now also an identical online version that can be accessed in any web browser at https://littlego-usermanual.herzbube.ch/.
- Many users have had trouble with the dry text-only user manual of the past, often being unable to match textual descriptions of icons to the actual buttons in the app. Hopefully this is now an issue of the past. Many thanks go to Andreas Fischlin who gave me the impetus to take on this long overdue task.
For more improvements/changes see the in-game Changelog.
Bugfixes
- In-app web views now continue to display their content after an external link is opened in Safari (#428). Affected views: Help tab, About tab, Credits tab, Source Code tab, and any one of the entries on the Licenses and the Changelog tabs.
- The app no longer crashes when a handicap stone is removed while board setup mode is active (#399).
- Fixed a bug where sometimes handicap stones were not properly marked up while board setup mode was active (#400).
For more bugfixes see the in-game Changelog.
Regressions
- Fixed the "Select player" screen to show a non-transparent background color even when no players are available (#421).
Technical changes
- Support for iOS 9 up to 14 has been dropped (#409). The minimum required version is now iOS 15.0.
- See the in-game Changelog for a list of devices that are no longer supported.
- Also see see the Changelog for other technical changes.
Download & Availability
Little Go is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This is the best app for go play. Its packed with features, very convenient, open source, and completely freeunbelievable. We wish we could donate, but we cant find how. Thank you for creating this excellent project and for continuing to develop it.
We are novice player of the game of Go. We like this game very much. We almost always lose, but that is OK. We do not understand how to end a game and not save it. We can resign, and that works. But often we do not want to save the game. We just want to learn from having played it. We would like a single-click control that would end the game and reset the board to empty. Is there such a control.
Im awful at Go. We just learned the basic rules a few minutes ago. Using advanced settings to tune down the bot, Im stuck somewhere between getting demolished by a level 1 bot and having a bot that resigns within 3 moves. Nice app, would be good for playing with friends, just need a little more granularity on tuning bot strength.
Wasted our time. Does not even work.
Its perfect. And open source. The best to play with friends. No ads. And full featured.
We really like it. The rating should be above 4.5 at the least. If some sugar feature is added to be beginner-friendly, the scorce might climb up. Astonishingly, it's open source.
Nice that it is free, but its just way too hard no matter what the setting.
Placing stones is not immediately clear, it has a weird magnifying glass mechanic that doesnt make much sense. It took us a while to figure out how to place a stone because there was no tutorial or anything. Also Im playing on the absolute weakest computer and it has DESTROYED us over and over on the 9×9 board without mercy, we cant imagine what the other bots are like.
Clunky UI and an AI that requires too much configuration.
As a beginner, we have a lot of fun with this app. Even on weaker difficulty, we really struggle to keep up with the AI, and thats great. Anytime we mess up we will consistently get harshly punished and it has really opened our eyes to the weaknesses in certain play styles. Ive learned so much from this app and Ive gotten to watch the margin of loss drop more and more as we keep playing. Sometimes it is frustrating to lose all the time, but every game we learn something and get a little better. We noticed that the game is open source, but we havent gotten a chance to check out the algorithms used. It surprises us that there isnt a way to tweak the difficulty level to easier levels, as thats usually pretty easy to do from a developer standpoint. Ive read that Fuego uses MCTS to make its moves and there should be parameters one could tune to make playing a little easier. Thanks again for this tool, its really great.
Im a software developer. We appreciate a good app. This is one of them. Open source. Well built. Lots of configuration options. Smooth UI. A true gem.
Theres a lot of ways to play around with the level of difficulty, so you can make the computer as weak or as strong as you. Its excellent. You make new computer characters that resign easy, or never resign, and you can have it as experienced as 1 game worth of knowledge, or thousands of games.
We love this app, we use it a lot when commuting on buses, trains, planes, or anywhere, its a great way to keep our go skulls up to pace… Our biggest request would be to know what the rankings are, Maybe Fuego is about 8-12 kyu or fuego strong is 2Dan- 1 kyu… Would you happen to have an estimate? Please let us know in the response.
Our favorite part about this app is how much you can customize & tweak. Overall, everything else about it is also pretty strong; display, UI, and even the manual is pretty clear/thorough. People whining about the AI being difficult dont understand just how high the skill ceiling is for this board game, and even the weakest setting should still take some decent practice to overcome. Besides, if youre constantly losing to the AI, then thats a perfect opportunity to see what types of moves are being used to beat you Look for patterns and adapt your strategy accordingly!! To the developer(s): Very nice work. 5/5.
This app is excellent. The AI is tough. But we followed some of the guidance about weakening it, gave ourselves a 5-stone handicap, and am enjoying some competitive games. The FAQs and the Help are fine; you have to dig around a little bit, but its not really difficult. We are a weak, novice Go player, and we find this app great fun. And there are a lot of options that we havent even looked at. We dumbed down Fuego as much as possible, changed the board to 19×19, and thats about it.
While out of the box the computer will mercilessly defeat a beginner, this is a FREE amazing learning tool. You MUST read the instructions and understand how to adjust it to your skill level otherwise prepare for a very uneven match that will make the most stubborn challenger want to give up. After tweaking we found the features quite useful and the game is now addictive in ways we can only describe a three hours of satisfying gameplay we that was traded for sleep or time with our family.
But the computer player (even Fuego weak) is always winning and does not make any mistakes ever. We guess we need to play with the settings some more. Getting a bit frustrated here.
Its a good app that plays hard. We would recommend it for any range player (but as a beginner of course prepare to lose a lot) our biggest gripe is that the Fuego engine really eats up battery life.
Its really hard for beginners and the ai will pass multiple times then suddenly all our pieces will disappear.
This game has no use for people trying to learn the game of Go. The AI is much too hard even at the easier setting. You will have lost the game by your this move without knowing why. If you hope to learn how to play using the two computer setting that sets up a game with rude computer against itself, you will be disappointed because the game will start several moves in, which prevents you from seeing the early moves that set up everything else.
The ai in the game is not set proportionally and whenever it starts to lose it just passes its move to you and if you do the same the ai stops the game and claims to have won even if you possess 80% of the board also if it cannot pass and regardless of what it does would lose most of its pieces crashes the game forcing you out and if you try to rewind and play the same move it just crashes itself again.
This is not a game for beginners! The AI is relentless and will never make anything other than the best possible move. Good challenge for pro players.
The game wont let us place stones. It used to on the first day we installed it, now it wont. Sorry, 1 Star for a game we cant play.
Impossible difficulty level and the app developer says he sees no problem with it. Dont even bother installing. Ive been playing for 3 years and struggle to beat the basic AI, it uses best-possible-play for every. Single. Play. Just dont install this app.
We played until we noticed the com made an error in its gameplay, it kept playing out of dead stones. It makes the final Komi count inaccurate by a minimum of 15 Komi.
This is the best free Go/Baduk app on iOS. From the graphical user interface, from all the customization options with scoring and AI difficulty. We see with other reviews people are raging at the difficulty with the AI… But this is one of the few go apps/programs that even HAVE an AI difficulty setting. For newbs: set the ai to lowest difficulty and only play on smaller board sizes like 7×7, 9×9. Really our only complaint is that we wish it had a windows program too, as this is excellent baduk freeware.
We got interested in the game after watching AlphaGo documentary and likely found your app which is only one without need to register on AppStore and working properly! Thank you.
Pros: Highly customizable games and AI Actually free Cons: You have to press somewhat hard to place stones Forward/fast forward buttons are too close together, so often you end up skipping to the end of a game when you are reviewing it Suggestions: *Add a rematch option under 'Game actions'. The purpose would be to save a few presses (faster than New Game > Done > Yes) when you want to play multiple matches with the same AI and settings.
- Overview: This is a great Go app. Unfortunately, it's default settings are very strong, and its UI is not intuitive, which is why many other reviewers are unhappy. But if you're willing to dig in and adjust the settings, we think most players can enjoy it. Of course, it took us a while to figure out all those settings. Initial settings: First things first: unless you're at least 2-3k, we recommend that when you start a new game, you use the initial screen that pops up to adjust the settings by switching the computer to "Fuego (weak)," turning off "even game," and then adding a handicap. Strength: we're an AGA 1d. After a couple of hours of playing 9×9 games, we were finally able to beat it at the default ("Fuego") setting without a handicap but only once. Our guess is that the default strength is at least 3d. We also tried playing against "Fuego (weak)," again without a handicap, and we were able to beat it most of the time, but not all the time. Our guess is that it's about 2k. The app calls the "weak" setting a "1" and the default setting a "5", so we would tentatively say: "1" = 2k = Fuego (weak) "2" = 1k "3" = 1d "4" = 2d "5" = 3d = Fuego If you're below 2k, we recommend adding handicap stones accordingly. You may also want to adjust the default komi setting (7.5) using the "advanced settings" on that initial screen before playing. While you're there, you can also switch from area to territory scoring if you wish. Personalizing: To create your own profile, click on "Settings" then "Players & Profiles" then "add new player," and chose a user name for yourself. Further adjustments how to make the "weak" profile weaker or the default profile stronger It's possible to adjust the strength settings. To weaken the "Fuego (weak)" profile, click on "Settings," then "Players & Profiles," then "Fuego (weak)," then "Display profile settings," then "advanced configuration" (just under "playing strength"). From there, you can adjust the "thinking time" slider from its default (10 seconds) all the way down to 1 second. Alternatively, to strengthen the default "Fuego" profile, click on "Settings," then "Players & Profiles," then "Fuego," then "profile" and select "extra strong". The strength stays at "5," but the Monte Carlo engine is given more time to think. Enjoy.
This app has everything you need to play go. You can save games and play them back turn by turn. It's fully customizable, you can change the board size, the rules, who's black and white, ect. Yes the ai is incredibly difficult. We can spend hours on this app trying and failing to beat it. It's great practice for fighting real opponents and eventually you can find a way to beat the ai.
We enjoy the game, but the computer is much to advanced for beginners, and the second we turn on a handicap the bot resigns on its first move. If there was some way to stop the bot from resigning, we would give it a 4/5, but as is the app is simply infuriating. Edit: we found the setting to turn off AI resignation. Its well hidden, but as promised we are changing our score to 4/5.
We don't like that the computer has the ability to resign. We want to smash our opponent and see the game through to the bitter end.
We know you say youre done adding features, but a demo board, like the one on OGS would be nice. This would make it somewhat easier to teach people basic rules of the game, working out variants, or doing life and death from books or other sources.
Fun and addictive game. This app taught us how to play but it is impossible to beat the computer, even with max handicap. The weak setting is not weak at all. Wish there was a beginner setting.
Was hoping for a beginner mode. Even with all the bells and whistles available in the settings, no such luck. The fuego weak mode seems harder than the regular fuego.
This seems to work well for practice. It is nice to try a strategy and quit if it doesnt work and try a different one. We were able to play almost 10 games per hour. The scoring seems to be flawed but you can just calculate score manually.
Give up. You're going to lose. You were going to lose within the first few moves. Even with the engine on the weakest setting, you are going to lose badly, very quickly, every single time. It is not fun at all. Don't even bother playing. You lose. And in case there are some random chance you might accidentally win, don't worry, the computer gives itself seven points ahead of you, even though you don't get a handicap with extra pieces to start like you're supposed to. Or, if you find a very well hidden the setting that allows you to get a couple of extra pieces is a handicap for the other player, the very first time you take one of its pieces, it simply resigns. So, we hope you like losing, and losing badly, because that is all that's going to happen in this game. If you think having even the slightest chance of winning is fun, forget it, because it will quit the minute it thinks there's even a tiny chance you will win. You lose.
After playing several rounds we realized that computers can pull and do moves on that are illegal and you cannot do.
Go itself is a fun game but this version seems like its set up to cheat you with the computer executing moves you cant do but its able to get off somehow. Its designed to make you fail rather than being a challenge. Theyve lost us as a gamer so please dont wast your time with this game just play with a live person instead 14 thumbs down.
It's impossible to win, even on the weak setting. It really needs a beginner's mode or just more options in general as far as difficulty goes, then it would be just fine.
Too hard, 7.5 Komi for white too much. Can't adjust. Lost by 0.5 points. Have not been able to come any closer to beating it. Also wish there was a 19×19 board.
Layout is great, graphics are pleasant, and the data displayed is appropriate and nice. We can't say anything about how high quality the AI is, but at first glance this little app is nice and enjoyable to use.
This is less of a game and more of an abusive relationship. When you think you're leading the AI on /finally/, for ONCE, and JUST about to pull off your first sweet move, you discover that the AI is actually one step ahead of you and crushes all of your dreams. And if you get pouty and hastily place the next few pieces without thinking? Everything you own will dissolve before your eyes and leave you battered and broken.
The AI will play moves that are not allowed. If the human player makes the same move the game will not allow it.
Thanks for making a very cool, free, open source Go game. Real-time area control is very cool :D.
We're a first time GO player but we're pretty strategically minded. This AI is amazing! Need to play against family and friends to get good :).
The difficulty is nice but we can't play if we're not by our charger cause it drains our battery.
We're a GO beginner so we were looking for a simple game to learn how to play. So we can't speak to how well the computer algorithms match up to advanced players. But we can say that after a week we've removed the game because figuring out how to pass, score, start new games, replay plays, etc is difficult and, once it's figured out, not very convenient.
The AI in this game, despite having a weak setting, if far too strong for a beginner. Despite us being able to play solid games with others, the AI will always beat us despite our efforts. A disheartening app that does nothing to encourage others to explore this deep and simple game. The interface is somewhat confusing, but rarely crashes and is responsive. The sound of putting your piece down is startling in the silence of it all and makes us dread putting a piece down. However, the accuracy and responsiveness f the actual placement and its non-existent price tag make this great if you have a human pal who wants to play.
The AI just resigns on high handicaps, and crushes us on low. How am we supposed to learn like this.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.0.1
- Size: 44.98 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: [Patrick Naf Moser]()
Last updated: 12th May 2024 | Genre: Board, Strategy | Developer: Patrick Naf Moser