Last updated on June 8th, 2023 at 02:20 pm
Backgammon NJ HD
Backgammon NJ HD is one of the best $7.99 to play game in the App Store.
Developed by Jimmy Hu, Backgammon NJ HD is a Board game with a content rating of 4+.
It was released on 18th May 2010 with the latest update 11th May 2020
Whether you are a fan of Board, Entertainment, or Strategy games, you will find this game interesting and will absolutely like it.
Rating
3,066 people have rated 6.3.9
You can download the game Backgammon NJ HD from APP STORE.
Description
● GAME CENTER — Play online, chat, invite friends, auto-match with random players
{ Real-time } Play online in real-time
{ Turn-based } Play online at your own pace
● VERSATILE — Play offline vs. computer or against another person in 2-player mode
● CUSTOMIZABLE — More options than any other backgammon app
● UNIVERSAL — Supports iPad, iPhone, & iPod touch
Play & learn backgammon at skill levels from beginner to world-class!
Backgammon NJ HD is a full-featured game which uses an advanced, neural network-based, artificial intelligence. Play against a computer AI, another person in 2-player mode on one device, or online against friends & others. Using Tutor Mode & Hints, Backgammon NJ HD can show you how to improve your game.
Discriminating players will appreciate how well the AI plays. It uses a neural network trained on millions of positions, a bearoff database, & a match equity table to achieve strong gameplay that will challenge even expert players.
REVIEWS
"[I] know strong bg play when I see it. This app is the strongest iPhone bg app I’ve played with by far. It does not cheat period. …Analyzing these matches with eXtreme Gammon confirms a world class level of play with normal luck factors. If you are losing, get over it. So would 99.9% of the other backgammon players in the world. It is just that good. Learn from it." -Richard Munitz, Giant of Backgammon, #21 world ranking in 2009
"Backgammon NJ plays at an extremely high level with an excellent interface, and I often use it to practice on my iPhone when I am traveling. I recommend it highly to my students & friends." -Phil Simborg, Professional Backgammon Teacher & Player, www.mindgamescenter.com
"I’ve played over 500 games now; I’ve checked about 5% of these against World Class Desktop programs (GNU, BGBlitz); and I’ve actually used some of the competition. NJ has the best interface & has more useful functions than any other backgammon apps out there."
"For serious backgammon players, Backgammon NJ is the way to go." -Macworld.com, May 2012
IS THIS GAME RIGHT FOR YOU?
This game is best for people:
- Who recognize the strength of neural network backgammon bots
- Who want to improve their game by playing against a world-class level AI
- Who will use the in-depth, technical features included in the app to prove that it is honest (https://www.njsoftware.com/note.html)
- Who won’t expect to win consistently on the higher skill levels
FEATURES
- Neural network-based AI
- 2 game types: Standard Backgammon or Nackgammon
- 4 skill levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert
- Customizable board design & checker colors
- Mersenne Twister algorithm for random number generation
- Doubling cube
- Single games or match play up to 25 pts
- Crawford rule for match play
- 1-player mode vs. computer
- 2-player mode on one device
- Game Center: Play real-time or turn-based online matches with friends & other players
- Chat with your online opponent
- Online Elo & Experience leaderboards
- Block list for auto-match
- Tap-to-move interface
- Highlighted checker movement options
- Hint & Undo
- Learn with Tutor Mode
- Game & dice stats, including Elo rating & ER
- Match info: GnuBG ID, win chances, equity, top 10 moves, cube decisions
- Email match files
- Practice mode with unlimited undo (1-player vs. computer)
- Manual match recording mode with unlimited undo & speed mode option
- Options to reverse board direction, resign, use one-tap moves, auto bearoff, auto finish, use Jacoby rule, & much more
- Match analysis (in-app purchase): Analyze past match files, view moves & errors for match, step through match, jump to position, play from position, save match files permanently
IMPORTANT
- If an online match ends for any reason, you’ll receive the Elo pts you deserve. FAQ: https://gamecenter.njsoftware.com
- Contact us for help: https://contact.njsoftware.com
Updated on 11th May 2020
v6.3.1:
- Fixed turn-based invite crash
- Fixed bug where offline match progress would be lost in some cases after exiting a turn-based match
- Minor bug fixes
v6.3.9:
- Fixed issue running app on iOS 10.x devices
Backgammon NJ HD Reviews
Get this. Its a well thought ought amazing online game. We have game friends in every timezone and can play 24 hours a day.
For some reason this app does not get the respect it deserves. We are a 2000 + rated player, and we enjoy practicing with this game very much. The equity meter towards the end is sometimes wrong, but overall a very worthy adversary. Nice clean interface, and a joy to play. Highly recommended.
We win most games when we play in the easy mode. Go figure. Its more pleasing to win every now and again. In expert mode, we rarely won.
Our wife and we have been using this app on our iPhones and iPads for many years. Absolutely flawless Game Center implementation so fun to play head to head over wireless. Why doesnt this app show up when searching for backgammon on the App Store??? It should be on the first screen! We just upgraded to the premium features, and Im looking forward to working with the analysis package.
Good but on e open on our iphone we cant lose.
Very strong. Very impressive. Probably on par with Jellyfish (PC) and BGBlitz (Mac) at a tiny fraction of the cost. And after playing on the iPad, playing on a Mac feels positively 1990’s. However for a more recreational player, Backgammon HD (versus Backgammon HD NJ) though not nearly as strong has a much more elegant, realistic and intuitive GUI, we think. PS: we see no evidence whatsoever that the dice are rigged. After playing a few thousands points, bravo, fabulous. Not for those with frail egos!! Better maybe than BGBlitz and playing on an iPad is so much better. Update: after playing nearly 5,000 games, wow! Bravo, Bravo, what a great app! After playing nearly 10,000 games, what an outstanding app. After playing 30,000 games, on an iPad Mini…. Expert mode, the value for money of this app is extraordinary. Thank you!
Great way to increase your knowledge of backgammon, become a better player and choose appropriate opponents.
The app is amazing! Great and all the customizaiton you could want. Controls and UI are also great! But there’s a bug when playing on our desktop. For turn based games we only see that our oponent played if we quit and reopen the app. There is no notification. Can you please try and fix? Let us know if there is any way we can help debug. Thanks for an amazing app!
We have used Backgammon NJ and HD for years and have enjoyed it.
By far the best backgammon app available. We’ve tried the majority of them and there isnt a close second. Unless you are playing on a PC and play GNU, Snowie or jellyfish, nothing is going to compare on the iOS next to this one. If youre looking into seriously improving your game, disregard the negative apps that all claim the game is cheating. We’ve been playing backgammon for over 25 years at a very high level and take our word, the people who complain are not that good of players and dont fully understand statistics and probability. Being able to save your games/matches and go back and have them analyzed move by move is a tool that will absolutely improve your game. You will swear you made the right move but when you run through it being analyzed and see the best move youll have that lightbulb moment. In short, if youre looking to improve your game, you will not find a more superior version than this.
This player will change his name to incorporate other players names and attach to profanity or use names like other players and act rudely disguised as that player . He is a 2170 playerplease kick him off app.
Okay, we really like this app (cannot say we LOVE any app, LOL). Still cannot figure out how the computer constantly gets back on the board quickly with perfect rolls (when we only have 2 open spots) so much more often than when we roll. Understandably, the computer moves well and covers the board better, but it still seems to almost ALWAYS get back on within 2 rolls unless we have the entire board covered. But, as far as cheating is concerned, we dont think it looks ahead at future rolls, but the manual rolls are suspiciously perfect. Either way, we still enjoy the game and have gotten better quickly. After a few weeks, Im taking best of 7 matches consistently against medium unless we do something dumb in the first 4 rolls. Ill move to hard and expert soon. In the analysis portion, we would like to see mirrored dice rolls as an option to replay entire games and see how different moves would change an outcome. That could help folks get much better. We have no idea if other apps do this at all.
The following was a canned offering that we cannot disagree with. Follows standard moves for aggressive players; great learning tool most of the time. Almost never makes dumb moves unless it’s being really aggressive. Strongly recommended.
Great app. We wish the analysis addon included ability to save the files into ios files app or share via ios share settings. We don’t use apple mail client so we cannot get any match files out of the app Also a minor issue but the match score font is too small.
Not much to say – best game out there. All the people claiming the game cheats with dice are novice players. Ignore all those amateurs who blame bad dice for the woes. Its been that way forever, no matter what game they are using. Same people who said Jellyfish, Snowie and GNU was rigged with bad dice are the same ones writing bad reviews. They just are not anywhere near expert level and have no understanding of the complexity of the game and statistical odds of each move. Best game ever for BG.
We have a perfect internet connection, when playing online, we get many time the same message The match connection was terminated unexpectedly.
Our favorite backgammon app mainly because of its excellent multiplayer support.
Its so easy to think you played a bad game because you lost or a good game because you won. This app helps you evaluate your game objectively. Im still not a great player, but our game has improved significantly.
Without a doubt the finest iPad app ever written. Countless hours of absolute pleasure with this amazing game.
Dice are fair. The computer player is pretty good. Backgammon is the cruelest game.
Confession: we were once one of those people that was CERTAIN that the game cheated in expert mode. After looking at Jimmys proof page, we were left with serious cognitive dissonance…. Surely, there must be some mechanism by which its playing unfairly. But then, a funny thing happened. As we continued playing more and more games, and learning from the hints provided, we gradually became a better player, better to the point where we were winning much more than we did before. It got to the point where we had to check the settings to make sure it was still in expert mode, like maybe we had switched it to easy mode and forgotten. Nope, still in expert mode. The game hadnt changed – we did. Look no further folks, this is the one to get. Good work Jimmy, and sorry for doubting you early on.
Confession: we were once one of those people that was CERTAIN that the game cheated in expert mode. After looking at Jimmys proof page, we were left with serious cognitive dissonance…. Surely, there must be some mechanism by which its playing unfairly. But then, a funny thing happened. As we continued playing more and more games, and learning from the hints provided, we gradually became a better player, better to the point where we were winning much more than we did before. It got to the point where we had to check the settings to make sure it was still in expert mode, like maybe we had switched it to easy mode and forgotten. Nope, still in expert mode. The game hadnt changed – we did. Look no further folks, this is the one to get. Good work Jimmy, and sorry for doubting you early on.
We’ve been playing Backgammon NJ on our iPhone for 10+ years along with other BG games, this is by far the best! The board and interface are straight forward but also offer in-depth settings, modes and stats that we havent found in any other game. After nearly a decade of playing at Medium and Hard skill levels, we forced myself to play on Expert level for the last two yearsto say it can be frustrating is putting it mildly. We can see how some people might think this App (and its AI) is somehow cheating, but its not. Those false claims have easily been debunked take a look at the njsoftware web site. The thing about Expert mode is its just that. Over time youll start to understand how game reacts to the dice rolls and your moves basically its strategy. Because of BG NJ, our method of play and approach have dramatically changed over the last few years. Im at a point where we can beat the game nearly half the time on expert level and often, we know within the first 4-6 turns how the game is going to end. Like anything else, if you play on medium, hard and expert level, you will become a much better playerI certainly have.
Our most used leisure app. Great game combining skill and luck; believe the dice rolls are random as advertised. Except when we lose ;-) Expert level is very challenging.
The moves are quick and precise. Just what you are looking for. You can easily set random numbers and use built in options. We have tried dozens. This is a keeper.
If you play the game for any length of time, you will see it does cheat. We have used this app for years and if we had made notes of our games we would have been able to prove it. But we didnt, because it is recreation for us. We have tried dozens of Backgammon apps but we always come back to this one.
We love it very much This is th only programed backgammon worth playing for professionals Its great keep the good going.
Hands-down the number one backgammon app. Unless Snowie, GNU or Jellyfish release their app, youre not going to find a stronger game to help you improve. Disregard all of the people leaving comments about the computer cheating. Those people truly dont understand the randomness of dice. Years ago when we first purchased, we were in that same boat. However, more than once we have turned on manual rolls and rolled our own dice and you know what? Crazy things also happen. Just this morning we played with Manuel dice and rolled four double sixes in a row. Had this happened on the random generator in the game, most people wouldve thought the game is terrible and on and on. To avoid future trashing of this app from all of those people, do what we did. Roll your own dice and see what happens. We guarantee youll always hit some crazy rolls or the computer will have what appears to be the perfect rolls. Guess what though? It happens. Play it long enough and roll your own dice and you will see all of these crazy things you people complain about time and time again.
It has everything except it can’t make coffee. The rolls are pretty darn fair. We couldn’t find any problem with them. Even if you might think they are unfair there are enough adjustments in settings to make you feel better. We have to refuse the temptation to "cheat" using hints when we run into a problem. This can be great for learning but sometimes we get lazy and keep wanting to hint to a win. Shame on us.
Great fun to play with your friends and improve your rating. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen on the long side of your phone to get out of the app. Thank you!
If youre interested in improving your game, this is by far the best we’ve seen, better than BG Galaxy. We recommend the complete analysis package!
We LOVE backgammon NJ in single player mode. It has all kinds of features, a pretty strong AI, and lots of ability to analyze your matches and improve your game. However in two player (real-time) mode sometimes it crashes and aborts the match. This is incredibly frustrating, especially if Im playing to a lot of points. Im on an 11 Pro, so this really shouldnt be a problem. We feel like theres a little more debugging work to be done before we could 100% recommend this app.
Still see too many real-time games hanging – wish this could be sorted out.
Excellent! The only suggestion we have for the devs is this you have two options of how to move your checkers, but can only choose one or the other, never both options of play simultaneously. You can either do a single tap which always move the highest number first, or you can hold down on the checker and slide your finger to move it. The sliding method shows you a highlight of where the checker can move, but makes you move it by sliding, never clicking. This can be so clunky in gameplay. The tap method does not show highlighted move options because its automatic. On the tap option, we found some things happening such as we rolled a 3 and a 4 when we were ready to bear off but still had only one checker left in the outfield, and it MADE us move the outer checker four, without the option to move it three, which we wanted instead. We wanted to move the outsider in with the 3, then bear off our 4 spot. Wouldnt let us do it because it always no matter what makes you move the higher number first. Every other (crappy terrible) app like lord of the board, you can do either method if you choose. For example, on most apps, if we hold our finger down on the checker, it shows highlights of where we can move. Then we can let go and simply double tap to move which one we want to move the farthest first, OR we can just slide the checker manually so we can move the lower number first. Make sense? The sliding the checkers function is really clunky and hard to use. The click function is better, but then takes away your option to slide/ move a lower die number first when you need to. Devs please reply and tell us if Im wrong and theres a way to do both! If so we will update the review. We’ve tried looking but can only find one thing in settings to toggle on or off, and it allows you to only do one of these move methods at a time. Other than that, great game! Also, hints would be great if you made an error, and when it pops up, it could tell you the gravity of the error (mistake or blunder for example), and then show you statistically the top 5 best moves in order, like eXtreme Backgammon app does. But overall- awesome!
We are constantly on the lookout for the best backgammon game ever. This is almost perfect. Backgammon NJ HD is designed to be realistic both in board designs as well as options for play. We enjoy both the pip count and percentage chance of winning/losing to see what the computer thinks is the right moves to make at the time. While we dont necessarily agree with its recommendations if you use the hint option, it does challenge us to think of additional options. The doubling option does make you think carefully about what moves are in play and allows you too end a potentially disastrous game. There are two issues with this game. First, after thousands of games played, we do believe that the dice rolls are slightly favoring the computer. Secondly, when allowing for the automatic bearing off, it will make mistakes only on your side and not on the computers side. Finally, we would definitely say that this is the best game out there that we have found, its also a great training tool for beginners, and we probably play 10 games a day because it is fun and fast.
Excellent design and tracking. Feels like the computer knows what dice rolls are coming so it knows when to double and/or hit your pieces. Best backgammon product for iPhone.
You learn the formulas of this Backgammon Game. Barley winning and opposition rolls doubles and wins. But we are addicted… What does that say?
The way to beat this game is to play conservatively. NEVER leave a piece exposed if you can avoid it. Block the computers pieces from advancing where ever possible. Keep hitting the computers open pieces aggressively. This game cheats like the devil and that will make you a better player. After getting frustrated and leaving, we eventually came back with the idea of trying to beat it KNOWING it cheats: – when your piece is left open, the computer will roll the right numbers and hit your open piece(s) most of the time. – In the end game, if the computer is not blocked but is behind, it often rolls doubles for itself to achieve a come from behind win. Heres an example of how dice rolls favor the computer: when it offers you a chance to resign or accept a double, and you have one piece open, if you do not resign the next roll for the computer will hit your open piece most of the time. If you have 2 pieces open at the moment you accept the double, the computer will hit your 2 open pieces most of the time. To test preferential dice tolls in favor of the computer, we played an entire game using hints (computer moves for you). The computer won, and some of our pieces were still in the first quadrant due to getting bumped so much. Thats a Backgammon win for the computer +3 points and a massive loss for the opposing side, when playing against itself using hints for our side. We’ve never lost like that when playing on our own. Lastly, we like this game because the board looks nicer than others we’ve played and dice rolls sound nicer than any other.
This is the best backgammon app out there, but we cant help thinking that its rigged. It always manages to get the exact rolls it needs, and gives itself lots of doubles when bearing off.
We read the comment by AirPrint Shmairprint (from 3 yrs ago), who tested his skill using manual rolling, and he did great, whereas in expert mode he lost every game. That gave us an idea. We were doing well, just playing against the computer, until we opted for Auto Roll dice, then we were losing 6/7 games or worse, and Im no beginner. So we changed back to not auto rolling the dice, and first new game we got backgammon, proving auto rolling dice was the problem. The reason we were willing to pay for this game, the Pro version, was the developers insistence that dice rolls werent biased; but with Auto Roll, opponent got more doubles when most needed, especially when bearing off. Of course, statistics show doubles average to be about same for both sides, but timing is critical. So DO NOT USE AUTO ROLL and you should really enjoy this game! Clearly the developer didnt test every possible scenario or he would have fixed the Greedy Component Syndrome. Unfortunately, last update was 2 years ago so doubt he will even read this comment. We’ve no comment about playing online, as we’ve not tried it yet. But for us, this game is a keeper.
We’ve played this app for years. Mostly fun, but in the Hard and Expert settings, the computer can simply roll you off the board and never let you back on. Ill have to try the manual rolls.
First, the game is fun and will improve your BG game, which is why we still give it 4 starts. However, there is a simple way to prove it cheats. The developers claim it doesnt cheat because it gives you the ability to see all the pre-determined, random dice rolls, which you can. Just check the dice rolls and write them down. Then watch as a the game alters the dice rolls depending on the situation. The higher the skill level, the more the dice rolls will change. The developer can point to the methodology all they want to try and claim the game is fair. The truth is you can easily prove it yourself. Sorry developers.
Move ratings differ greatly from experts. Also amazing the amount of times entry with opponent only having the 6 point or 3 point covered. Its a nice app why is it rigged?
We purchased the analysis capability several years ago. It was supposed to be forever. It worked fine until recently when it said we needed to purchase the analysis capability to use that feature.
Quite a number of people believe that your app is stacked against them. How about instead of just blindly defending yourself, recognize that whether you are right or they are right is almost irrelevant. People feel that it is unfair. How about you try to adapt some to what is being said? We play on your app because its fun sometimes and mostly become a better player. Maybe also enhance your hint function to teach more. In this electronic world perception is reality. Thank you for considering.
We just upgraded to iOS 16.1, and not we cannot exit app on iPhone without re-booting phone. Any help would be appreciated.