Marujito is named after a yellow canary that is a character on the Barcelona television comedy show Plats Bruts. It (the engine, not the canary) runs with the CheckerBoard interface, and was developed by Angel Galan Galan of the University of Barcelona. He bundles it under the name Matilde with two other engines that play European checker variants.
Well, this new kid on the block is no comical bird, despite its name. Marujito clearly outplayed Simple Checkers in my standard test game. The game was a very interesting matchup, with Marujito calculating a pretty way to win a piece and then correctly winning a 3 kings vs. 2 kings endgame--- something that the more basic programs very often fail to do. Further testing against Damas 99 yielded a draw, and Damas 99 is a rather strong Class C program, meaning that Marujito is as well.
The program author continues development, so only time will tell how far this very promising engine will go.
Interface: A (with CheckerBoard)
Feature Set: A (with CheckerBoard
Opening Book: None.
Endgame Database: None.
Overall: A very exciting and promising new entry.
CLASS D: NOT SO GREAT
Plus 700 bills itself as a 'self-learning' program. You will have a hard time verifying this, though, as the demo version has that feature turned off, and you have to buy the standard or "professional" versions at $17 or $37 respectively to get this feature.... or just about any other feature, including time controls longer than 3 minutes per game, analysis, databases, etc. This, folks, is what we call crippleware. The web site is pretty disorganized and I had to work at it to be able to determine the difference between the standard and professional versions, other than $20 in cost.
Well, having gotten that off my chest, I found that it plays a so-so game. The interface is a little annoying; you click on a piece, drag the mouse to the destination square and click again. But there are no predictable visual cues; sometimes pieces and squares are highlighted, sometimes not. I've yet to figure this out completely.
The program shows a little running graph and statement about how it thinks it's doing, such as 'I have a very great advantage.' This is quite entertaining although I suppose it could be classed as low-level psychological warfare. There are several analysis modes and a number of otehr features, but the documentation is mostly non-existent so learning how to use these features is difficult or impossible.
It would not run on any of my machines until I installed a patch; be sure you do the same.
The program supposedly has an opening book but I haven't figured out where or what it is, or how good it is, if it exists.
I played Plus 700 against Simple Checkers, which is my reference standard for medium strength. Simple Checkers easily won, even allowing Plus 700 to continue to calculate positions while Simple Checkers was thinking and while I manually entered moves!
The program undoubtedly has potential, but as it is a weak player, and is hard to figure out, there is no reason to spend any money on this when you can buy Sage or Nexus instead.
A screen shot can be found here.
Feature Set: C (given that most options couldn't be figured out)
Interface: B
Opening Book: Small (that's what they claim)
Endgame Database: None
Overall: Too much trouble for too little reward.
Here is another highly crippled program that is very difficult to evaluate in the shareware edition. But I must admit that Iwas fascinated with it, and sent the authors the $19.95 registration fee. Actual Checkers has a reasonable, if small, opening book and sometimes has a concept of endgame play, and sometimes not, although the authors say they have built in endgame intelligence. It plays a better game than you might expect, even on tight time limits. That is not at all to say that it plays particularly well.
Here, by the way, is an interesting thing. You can't set separate time limits for the program and for you. If you have 10 minutes, the program has 10 minutes. Period. While this is challenging, you can't even the odds by giving the program 2 seconds per move and giving yourself all the time you want. The operational paradigm here is that of a match, not a practice game.
Now, this is not all bad, and in fact has a startling advantage. If you are like me and have trouble with speed games, being not quite able to click the mouse all that fast, you can set up one-minute games and practice, practice, practice. Then when you play a speed game on the net you may have half a chance of keeping up!
There is another way to alter playing strength, though. The game has a number of pre-rolled personalities, from the 'Kid' who is a weaker player, all the way to 'Einshtain' (I just love the Yiddish rendition) who is the strongest. You can fiddle with the move evaluation parameters, too. This is an interesting feature, which has both charm and value.
The screen and the interface are fine; the animations are a little slow but you can turn them off. The screen is made of a bunch of separable windows and you can move them all over the place if so desire. I'm not sure what this adds.
Overall play quality puts this into Class D. I had expected much better. I had first matched it up against WCC Gold Plus, and Sage; to be sure, Actual lost to both, but played credibly in a 3 minute game. I need to go back and play more and longer games, for the reason cited a couple of paragraphs below.
The greatest weakness of the program, besides unpredictable results in endgames (couldn't win four kings against two) is failure to use time properly. The program often uses gobs of time in the early stages of the game and then runs short at the end. I actually won a game in which I was two pieces down because the program ran out of move time! I think the addition of an endgame database and some work on time control are what the authors ought to look at next. But the program hasn't seem to have had an update in some time, and I am not sure of its current status in that regard.
I was not able to evaluate self-learning mode. Perhaps I don't understand it well enough or perhaps I simply didn't give it enough time.
But, above, I mentioned the need for further competitive testing. As I said, I've used this program a lot for one minute speed games. It wins most of the time, but then it's against me, and not an expert. But recently, I've been playing games against Simple Checkers (also reviewed here) with the CheckerBoard interface. Simple Checkers, with no databases and just a good, streamlined search strategy, seemed to give me more trouble than Actual Checkers. Why? It didn't add up.
So I played Simple Checkers against Actual Checkers, making things as even as possible, and setting the time control to five seconds per move. Surprisingly, Simple Checkers defeats Actual Checkers pretty easily. Actual Checkers opening book is evidently not anything like large enough to really matter. Perhaps Actual Checkers would have an endgame advantage, but I haven't really seen that yet; by the time the endgame is reached, Actual Checkers has been completely outplayed and is a piece or so down. So, is Actual Checkers that poor a player, as the Class D ranking implies? It seems so.
But I have found one redeeming feature, and that is in the aforementioned separable windows. Since the display itself can be made to look very nice, and there is a position set-up option, I use Actual to generate large board diagrams to use elsewhere on this web site. They are very appealing, and very easy to do; and the separable windows allows me to just capture the board window and not have to do any cropping or touch-up whatsoever.
Bottom line: the choice is yours, and while Actual Checkers is a nice enough entry in some respects, your money is much better spent on Sage, which is very much stronger, more complete, and in active development.
A screen shot can be found here.
Feature Set: C
Interface: B
Opening Book: Small (apparently)
Endgame Database: None (that I can find)
Overall: Not nearly as good a player as you would have expected.
The author expresses the laudable intent to show how checker playing programs can be put together. It is a free program with source code available.
That said, the program is at present a fairly weak player and will not provide a lot of serious competition, at least at a reasonable play speed. It is a typical 'tactics only' player; it will find some shots and combinations, and avoid some, but not a lot else. As far as I can tell there is no opening book or endgame database.
There are a couple of nice visual features, for example, three different board sizes and color customizations, although to my eye the board is just a bit off-square. There aren't, however, any real playing features, other than save and restore, and a running commentary on the engine's actions, from which with some effort you can pick out the game moves. Computer play level can be set up by time per move, number of plies, or both.
There is an option for a numbered board, but it is flawed. It shows the squares as numbered 1-32 from the top down, even if you are playing Red and Red is at the bottom.
In the end, while this is a nice effort, it is outdone in every category by other free programs. It certainly has potential, though, and perhaps some day will become a contender.
In the playtest against Simple Checkers, Simple Checkers won easily. This program barely makes Class D in strength.
Here is a screen shot.
Feature Set: D
Interface: B
Opening Book: None.
Overall: Not there yet.
NOTE: Much newer versions are available; I have not reviewed them as yet.
This little known but still currently marketed program very nearly won a 'Don't Waste Your Time' award because of the terrible display, interface quirks, and uninspired play, but it has some nice redeeming features which saved it from this terrible fate. Barely.
The program is advertised as a DOS program, running on anything from DOS 5.0 right up through Windows XP. This claim is true, but the installation program will only run in a Windows 32-bit environment! If you want to run under DOS, as I very much did, you have to do an install on a Windows machine and then transfer the whole game directory over to your DOS machine. Not many other people besides myself will have the patience to do this nor is the reward for so doing very tangible.
Well, on with the show. The display is truly horrible, a pure black-and-white with ugly pieces, with white kings that look like dishes and black kings that look like buttons. You have a choice of algebraic or numeric notation, but if you choose numeric, you can't get rid of the obtrusive square numbers. If you go to algebraic, the square numbers are replaced by chessboard style notation around the edge of the board, but the move list becomes algebraic; there is no real way to win this one.
To the author's credit, play options are not disabled in the demo version, but it hardly matters. Play isn't very good. The program seems to sometimes figure out tactics very nicely, and sometimes makes incredibly stupid moves. There are opening books and end-game databases which are credible and useful, however. In all fairness, this is really a Shashki (Russian checkers) program, with American/English checkers added on. The author claims only 'average' play for the English checkers mode; I think it's a lot less than average, though. (He claims master level play for Russian checkers; other variants such as Italian and Pool are included, too.)
The interface is click on piece, click on square, which is just fine, but if you click on a piece and only one move is available - POW! - that move is made before you have a chance to say 'Nyet, maya droogh.' And, if there is a forced jump, it's made at once. This, I guess, is supposed to 'help' you, but if there is a series of jump moves, the pieces fly around so fast you'll find yourself saying 'Chto eta?'
Features are reasonable. You can set up positions and let the computer play them out (but I would never trust the results); you can scroll through the moves of any game; you can click on a move in the move list and be taken to that position (this is rather nice).
But the nice, and at least somewhat redeeming, feature is the game database. Over 18,000 historical games come with the program, in a searchable database. (The shareware version limits loading to 1,000 games.) There is a little mini-board that is on the database screen; you can set up a few pieces and the database will find games in which similar positions arose. The search is agonizingly slow, but the results are phenomenally good. I tried this with an endgame position and the program gave me back about 30 master games to browse through and learn from, all of them containing the position I specified at some point in the game. But it's really better than that, because the program will return the requested position even with 'extra' pieces on the board. In other words, it's a sort of fuzzy search that seems to be rather smart.
Registration is outrageous at $49. Buy Sage instead and have $30 left over. This too is a marginal Class D entry.
Here is a lovely screen shot.
Feature Set: B
Interface: D
Opening Book: Small
Endgame Database: Small
Overall: Not worth the money by any stretch of the imagination.
Update: the author is currently (March 2006) working on a beta of a Windows version that is very promising and is orders of magnitude better than the old DOS version. Stay tuned for a review when ready!
Diamond Draughts (review in progress)
Here is an interesting pure-Java item. You can play on-line or, as we are interested in here, download and play on your own computer. It has the advantage of running on any computer that supports Java, and will run locally in your web browser. The author touts the program as 'very strong' and it indeed plays a good enough game for what it is. The match I set up with Simple Checkers was a very exciting tactical battle, with complex positions. Alas, in the end Diamond could not match wits with Simple Checkers, even though Diamond was set for 10 seconds of think time and Simple Checkers for just 5. Still, the game was credible, although the playing strength is perhaps not quite what the author thinks.
This is one of the better Class D programs in terms of strength.
Other ratings to come. No opening book or endgame database.
Checkers International 1.2 review to come
Loses to Simple Checkers but puts up a credible fight, at least until the endgame where it seems to specialize in boneheaded moves. (There may be a more recent version available.)
Cyberko Checkers review to come
Loses to Simple Checkers but puts up a good battle. Actually sacrificied a man to get an early King and a strong position! But then it blew the advantage away with a series of dumb moves and lost.
Mad Checkers Review in progress
This is another interesting item which allows for all sorts of variety play with a large compendium of rules sets (including Canadian) and the ability to play on an almost arbitrary size and shape of board. But I digress. It plays a fair game of American/British checkers when set at a high enough level. Against Simple Checkers, it played a credible enough game but of course lost.
There is no opening book and no endgame database.
Aros Magic Checkers Review to come
When set at the highest level (called 'discus' for reasons unclear to me) it plays a passable game, losing to Simple Checkers while at least putting up a decent fight.
There is no opening book and no endgame database.
I'll bet you've never heard of this little item. It was developed in the days of the BBS (remember those?) as a so-called 'BBS Door Game' and as such runs under DOS, although it will run in a Windows box. To run it you first need to load an ANSI driver. (Getting deep already, aren't we?) Back in the BBS days all of this was clear, but today.... not so clear.
In any case, there are various options which apply only to a BBS environment. I'll just stick to the 'play against the computer' selection. You play on a board drawn with ANSI graphics, which is pretty nicely done considering the limitations of character graphics. Alongside the play board is a small board showing square numbers. You have a scrolling picklist of legal moves, which you scroll through with your spacebar, and select the move you want with the enter key. If this all sounds awkward, well, it is.
Are you still with me? I hope so, because if you go through all the hoops you'll find that it doesn't play such a bad game even when set at intermediate difficulty levels. It plays quickly enough, even at high levels, not to be too annoying, as well. Of course, the author's hype about 'you'll never be able to beat it' at high levels, and his depiction of the attendant frustration on the part of the user, is not exactly to be taken seriously. Come on now, this isn't KingsRow.
But in this category it's one of the better ones. It played a reasonable game with Simple Checkers, getting a draw twice in the two games I tried. It should have lost; Simple Checkers could not figure out 3 vs 2 or 4 vs 3 king endings and so blew away won games. Most of the other programs, though, lose to Simple Checkers long before this stage. So, while I still rate Bcheckers as 'D' in playing strength, it's a reasonable 'D' at least.
When playing against the computer, there are no features at all. You can't review moves; the game moves aren't saved; and games can't be saved and restored. (Some of these features exist in player to player mode, but that isn't the point here.)
This is a cute relic, nothing more, perhaps fun to play with a little for the sake of nostalgia. After that, though, you need to look elsewhere. I put this one in the 'don't bother' category because, frankly, using it is quite a bother. But it does play a fair enough game, if you want to bother with all that bother.
A screen shot, showing the remarkable job that was done with character graphics, is here.
Feature Set: F
Interface: D
Opening Book: None
Endgame Database: None
Overall: It's actually sort of fun if you enjoy retrogaming and it plays better than you'd expect.
CLASS F: NON-COMPETITORS
In this category, I don't bother to rate opening book and endgame database content. You can safely assume that there are neither.
There are many, many more programs out there that fall into Class F; I simply don't have funds to buy them all or time to review them all. But never fear, you're not missing out on anything.
NeuroDraughts review in progress
This one is really different, and rather interesting.. It's one of two programs reviewed (so far) that is based on neural networks. The neural network approach, which I can't begin to fully explain, relies on the program playing itself and learning from its experiences. It has proven very successful in Backgammon, and in fact the world class Backgammon programs such as GNU and Snowie use this approach. Its application to checkers has been quite infrequent, however.
And it may be that that is with good reason. NeuroDraughts plays a weak game, sometimes making good moves and sometimes making incredible blunders. Perhaps more 'training' is needed, or perhaps the concept itself is flawed.
NeuroDraughts is easily defeated by Simple Checkers.
Zillions of Games is a unique and innovative gaming system that allows a single host or shell program to control the play of about a thousand(rather than zillions) different games. Many modules have been independently written for this system, including rare games such as Konane and many more. Generally speaking, these modules play pretty poorly.
Given this, I found the checkers program better than expected, considering its lack of pretension and simple nature. This does not mean that it is good, however. To be sure, there is no opening database, and the program calculates 9-13 as the best move for black (an obvious bias toward tactics and winning and preserving material).
Features? The program lists moves, at least, but in chess notation. You can move back and forth with move and game review functions, something I wouldn't have expected. There are also save/restore features. What is interesting is the possibility of writing your own checkers game module with your own playing algorithm, since the whole idea of Zillions of Games is to provide an open interface to allow creation of more and more game modules.
Overall, again, this is better offering than I ever would have expected, but still, it does not play very well. It also provides many checker variants, such as Pool, Frisian, International, and a number of others.
The price is $24.98 for the registered version, which is high if you just play the checkers module, but then there are all the rest of the games.
A screenshot, of the typical red/black board, is here.
Footnote:I contacted the authors about Zillions. It turns out that they did not write a checkers engine. They just wrote a 'rule set' and the internal, generalized game engine of Zillions ran against the rule set! My admiration and respect goes out to these designers. A general game engine of this type is no small achievement.
Feature Set: C
Interface: B
Overall: A nice toy but not a serious player.
KCheckers is pretty specialized in that it runs under the KDE environment of X-Windows of Linux (recent versions require Qt instead). This makes it even a bit more specialized than XCheckers. It can be difficult to install if you don't have the right version of Qt already installed. It offers few features (save, restore, restart), though the display is nice but rather small. It also plays rather poorly, even at the so-called 'master' level. And, for some reason, White moves first. You take turns playing White and Black against the computer; I didn't find an option to change this.
This all sounds like a roaring condemnation, but in fact, it is not. The authors make no unsubstantiated claims for this work in progress (as of January 2004, the latest release number is 0.4). I am hopeful that KCheckers will improve, but there hasn't been a new release in quite a long while.
KCheckers loses easily to Simple Checkers.
A screen shot is here.
Feature Set: D
Interface: D
Overall: There's not much here.
If you are evaluating this game, be careful, as the evaluation copy runs just once! But it doesn't matter. There are three levels of play; I decided to start on the hard level, expecting to get at least a reasonable game with an understanding of tactics. Uh... no such thing. It is so easy for a lowly player such as I to defeat, there is little point, except as something to introduce children to checkers (of which more below).
Another example: I wanted to see about endgames. In a situation with five kings against one, with the lone king in the double corner, this program could not get a win.
To be sure, there are nice animated graphics, and the boards mostly look quite nice, even if some of the colors are a little odd. They are presented against vivid backgrounds and look almost as good as Wincheck, which is discussed above. (There are several options including the inevitable red and black.) As to features ... wait, did I say features? Well, this is a toy, so I guess I shouldn't look for features. It just plays through a game of checkers, with sound and graphics and animations.
There is also an option to play against others either directly or via internet server, but I haven't gotten this to work yet.
Version 2.5 sells for $1.00. Certainly, this is far from overpriced. If you want something for small children, or if you are tired of getting whomped by KingsRow and wish to just beat up on something, this is surely it. It just might be worth that dollar. But don't expect to improve your skills. (Note that there is also a Pocket PC version for $5.95, which is not the subject of this review.)
This program should by rights be given the "Don't Bother" award, but I think it might just be engaging enough to introduce children to checkers, at least until they learn the rules and learn a little technique. Of course, the playtest against Simple Checkers ended with an easy win for Simple Checkers.
A screenshot of one of the better board options is here.
Feature Set: D
Overall: Might be good for the four to six year old crowd.
This is a cute little item that, if set at a high enough level, will play about as well as Zillions of Games. The problem is that the search engine is extremely slow if you go to the upper skill levels. At the highest level, I ran out of patience on the first move on my 2GHz Pentium. There are a total of 10 levels; I went back to level 4, which is marked hard, and found that it plays fairly quickly, if not very well. At the higher levels, it's a bit better but certainly nothing like in proportion to the time it takes to choose a move. There of course are the usual problems with endgame play, and some odd ideas about opening moves.
There are few features at all; just single level move undo. This game is just meant, I think, to be some fun for little kids, and it will surely succeed at that. I do, however, question the 'hint' feature which at times teaches incorrect play (9-13 is one of the hints for Black's first move).
This is freeware, by the way. I think it is extremely nice of the company to offer this game at no cost.
There are some humorous touches. At the end of a game, should you lose, there is a sound effect of a child's voice, in an imitation British accent, saying something like 'Thank you for playing checkers, sorry you didn't win.' Uh, that's draughts on the other side of the pond, folks. But I guess you can't blame them for trying.
For some reason, I find this game completely charming. It has a friendly and attractive feel and could easily win young kids over to checkers. And that alone is a major merit.
Here is a screenshot of a game in progress.
Simple Checkers destroys Magic Wand, even with Magic Wand set at a level where it takes several minutes per move, but I am not surprised.
Feature Set: D
Interface: C
Overall: OK for the kiddies and anyhow it's free.
Fine Checkers Review in progress
This is really not-so-fine checkers, at least for play quality. The shareware version will play at a so-called beginner and intermediate level; you have to buy the package to get to the "proffi" (professional?) level. The intermediate level tests out at the level of an educated five year old, so I didn't send in my money to risk trying the "proffi" level.
The package contains several other games, nice graphics and interface, and a clickable move list, so there are some features here, and some attention to detail. But unfortunately it just can't play anything remotely resembling a decent game. A screen shot will come later.
Feature Set: B
Interface: A
Overall: I can't see $15 for this unless you just want another nice toy.
Net Checkers 5.0 Review in progress
Net Checkers has a built in engine called the 'Zebra' engine which is not bad for a program of this type (which is to say, it's not very good either). The program will also accept 'drop in' engines such as Cake San Souci, which of course would make the program strong (thanks to Cake, not to Net Checkers). The 'net' feature of Net Checkers, though, isn't really worth the bother, as it offers nothing that on-line play or even Instant Messenger play can give you.
Net Checkers loses in a convincing manner to Simple Checkers.
Master of the Board Review in progress
Master of the Board is a nice enough collection of games, including international rules and giveaway, the latter of which can be a bit hard to find. But as for American/British checkers, you'll need to set it to the, uh, 'master' level if you want any kind of game at all. And even then .... and of course it has no clue in an endgame.
Against Simple Checkers, it played well enough until it lost a man, and then fell apart. This is pretty typical behavior; the program seems to no longer know what to do and starts making marginal or bad moves. Simple Checkers, of course, won the game.
The shareware version of this game will only play at the novice level, and at that level it is a total waste of time. It has no opening book (duh), doesn't see the simplest shots, and seems to be playing giveaway instead of standard checkers, judging by the moves it makes.
So I managed to borrow a registered copy just to see if it was any better at the 'advanced' level. Uh... it was better, because it could not possibly be worse, but it still played a miserable game. I can beat it pretty much at will. And, should you get down a piece or some such... play it out to the end. In an ending of one king vs. one king, where the program had the move on the lone king, far from the double corner, it couldn't figure out what to do in a case that required the barest of look-ahead.
The author's claim that this program can be used for tournament training is beyond comment. It is perhaps that sort of unsupported, swaggering statement that causes me to be especially caustic in my evaluation.
Needless to say there are no features other than save and restore. The graphic presentation is average, with red and black pieces on a dark blue and grey board. The black pieces blend into the blue squares and are hard to see. Maybe this is stealth mode?
Strategist Checkers is utterly demolished by Simple Checkers.
This is a very undistinguished program, even as a toy, and I am happy to bestow the "Don't Bother" award upon it. The full registered version is $10. Add a few dollars and spend that money on Sage instead.
A screenshot, if you really want to see it, is here.
Feature Set: D
Interface: C
Overall: Don't waste your time and certainly not your money.
MVP Software is a venerable name in the shareware business. They've been around for quite some time and they have always offered reasonable value for the price. So, I was anxious to try MVP Checkers.
The presentation is very interesting and somewhat typical of MVP games. You choose your opponent from a set of named personalities, at three different levels of play. I tried it out at the medium level, and was able to win pretty easily. The program is one of those typical material conscious things: attack a man where you can, defend where you can, and look for simple shots. The depth of search seems to be, well, not so deep. I went back and tried the beginner level, and curiously enough (or maybe not so curiously) the beginner and medium level of play seemed about as good (or about as bad); I couldn't really see any difference.
Well, next I managed to borrow a copy to run at the 'expert' mode. It was considerably better than at the intermediate mode, but frankly, bad. I played for a while and found out three interesting things:
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It couldn't figure out four kings against one.
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If you play White, you play from the top down, because this program will not reverse the board!
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In a drawn endgame.... there is no draw option (or 40 move rule or anything to recognize a draw). The program will keep playing until you get tired. It won't let you quit unless you concede the game! Pretty cheesy.
Certainly, the presentation and theme is nice. Stats are kept on how you're doing against each personality. Again, in a toy of this type, you shouldn't look for serious features, and you won't find any. There are multiple types of boards and pieces available, but not in the shareware version. The shareware display is actually pretty bad. The board is nice enough, a slate and white faux marble, but the pieces are just flat black and red (what did you expect) with a lightning bolt emblazoned on them. You play on the white squares, which is actually a good thing as there would not otherwise be enough contrast with the black pieces. Music and sound are also a part of the package.
Registration at $19.95 plus shipping seems more than a bit on the steep side, especially for a program that is best avoided even in the free shareware version.
I thought this program was worth two screen shots: this one showing how you choose an opponent personality, and this one of the board display.
Interface: A
Overall: Not worth your time or money.
This is an entertaining little item. There was once a Cafe internet site for playing games on-line, but it is no longer in service. Instead, they offer, for free, these little game playing applets for Windows, checkers being one of several. It's a quick download and a nice little program with a simple but adequate display and drag and drop interface. No frills, no skills. Wait--- did I say no skills? The program claims to be a strong opponent on the highest level (there are 9 levels of, uh, expertise). On level 9, lowly little me plays about an even game if I put myself on autopilot and just sort of click around. If I think for more than zero seconds per move, I win easily. In other words, this one isn't so good. It's a bit stronger than some of the other losers reviewed in this category, but not even as good as the Zillions of Games offering.
No features, but then nothing is claimed in this regard.
Feature Set: D
Overall: Will hold your attention for up to five minutes over the course of your lifetime.
I did get this nice little screen shot.
Epic Megagames/Twisted Pine Checkers
I am not sure whom to credit this to; the download said Epic Megagames but everything in the game says Twisted Pine. Maybe Twisted Pine developed this for Epic?
Anyhow, are three levels of play. I started out at the highest, which is called 'genius' level. and won without even trying. Here's another program that seems to search about one level deep, and has trouble figuring out whether or not it's playing giveaway checkers.
There is sound and music, and incredibly slow and annoying animations which can fortunately be turned off. Save and restore game is an available feature, as is multiple level move undo and redo, which would allow you, if you are of a sadistic nature, to review the whole history of you slaughtering the poor genius-level computer.
The board looks nice enough; at least it's not red and black! There is an alternative board display as well, which looks like something out of a hallucinatory experience.
To what use could this implementation be put? Well, none that I can think of; there are better games for kids, even, than this one. Fortunately, the game is now abandonware and thus takes some effort to find, sparing you this experience. I don't give a link for it; if you really want it, you'll be able to dig it up on the internet.
This is another game worth two screen shots; one of the regular board and one of the psychedelic board.
Feature Set: D
Interface: C
Overall: If you can't locate a copy, that's good.
Logic Games for Kids (review in progress)
There is a checkers game as part of a group of games, perhaps a dozen in all, aimed at kids of some indeterminate age. The checkers game is about what I expected, abominable. The play is terrible, but the engine tries to make up for it by cheating and not taking some jumps! When you want a multi-jump, there is a 'more jumps' button to click; you are asked this question after every jump, whether or not multi-jumps are available.
By the way, did you know that White moves first?
Against Simple Checkers, this program seems to move at random until the game is over, and, of course, lost.
Interface: D
Overall: Forget it.
This is a checkers game with a Braveheart theme, for reasons known only to the author. There is a full 3D environment; the checkerboard is on the floor of a large room, and there are controls for zooming, panning, rotating, etc..... all the stuff you've come to expect in a video game. There are Braveheart related objects, drawings, etc, on the walls of the room, and the checker pieces have emblems which I guess also relate to Braveheart.
But don't get too enthusiastic and rush out and download this item. First, the 3D scrolling on my 2Ghz Pentium with high-end video card was unbelievably slow, choppy, and erratic, to the point of near unusability. When I finally got a view that didn't have either (a) parts of the checkerboard offscreen, or (b) a perspective or angle that made rational play impossible, I then had to put up with a horrible piece motion system. The animation (or lack of, really) was so fast that pieces changed position faster than an eyeblink, leaving me wondering what move I made, let alone the computer opponent.
And it gets worse, very much worse, in fact. The program is free (you get a free registration code from the author's web site), but when you install it, one of the most intrusive and stupid pieces of spyware ever invented installs right along with the game. You have no choice but to install eZula Hot Text, a piece of hijacking software that takes over your web browser, annotating the pages with links and suggestions for things to buy.
Do not install this game unless you have a copy of Spybot Search and Destroy ready to run. But you can't have it both ways. If you run Search and Destroy to get rid of eZula, the next time you run the game your screen locks up solid.
I doubt if I'll ever find out if the game plays well or not. I was able to play a game or two, but I struggled so much with the interface that I couldn't do a decent evaluation. The author makes wild claims about 'state of the art AI' and an engine that can compute 15 plies. (Wow!)
I ran Spybot, disabling the game, and I refuse to re-install this thing to try to get a better determination. Learn from my experience and avoid contaminating your hard drive with this miserable product.
Feature Set: Unknown but probably no better than D
Interface: F
Overall: An abomination of Biblical proportions.
Good grief. The first thing you notice is that your double corner is on the left. And the board appears in a twisted perspective that makes visualization and play rather difficult, as if the mirror imaging weren't enough of a problem already.
The whole purpose of this offering seems to be to overlay some sort of medieval theme; actually playing checkers is clearly secondary. At the highest level of difficulty, it can sort of play, at least up to a point (meaning that it doesn't throw away pieces too often). The lower levels of "difficulty" are laughable. This, folks, is the program mentioned above, under Simple Checkers, which will get a king and then endlessly shuttle it back and forth between the seventh and eighth ranks, which is pretty rank.
There are no features; there is a tournament mode that I can't figure out; there is a choice of three 'locations' which are just different background pictures.... except for Dragon's Lair, in which the dragon will roar and the whole picture will shake periodically. Atmosphere, I guess, but it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with checkers.
This is a $10 shareware program and it should be avoided. Even if you think it might entertain children, it will teach them a goofed-up version of checkers, so don't ruin their development by letting them near this game.
A screen shot is here, and it is a true 'must-see.'
Feature Set: F
Interface: F (due to mirrored board)
Overall: A total waste.
This is a relatively new entry into the market. It features fuzzy 3D boards, a variety of opponents, and a setup in which white moves first--- and you always play white.
I only played the demo, which allows only the first two of several 'skill' levels. The authors say that you can play against harder opponents as your skill level increases. Well, it won't have to increase much, because this program plays the worst game of checkers I've seen in a long time.
I'm not going to order the full version ($10 plus shipping) to see if there is any improvement at higher levels, as I really don't expect much. Stay away from this one. It even suffers from fuzzy graphics. Oh, there is an option to make jumping non-mandatory. I'm not surprised.
Feature Set: D
Interface: B
Overall: Don't bother.
McTech Checkers Review in progress
The implementation of this is so bad that it doesn't understand double (or multiple) jumps, and there is a little box you have to click when you have a multiple jump to make (which apparently the game thinks is optional).
Argo Checkers Review in progress
The shareware version only allows for plays between two human players! On the shareware exit screen, we are told 'Now that you see how beautifully it plays, order the full version and be able to play the computer' or similar words. They've got to be kidding. All you've seen is a few animations and a thoroughly average play interface, but trust them, the full version plays a strong game. It's fortunate that the company, Software Creations,is no longer in business (as far as I can tell) so you can't throw your money away on this one.
Well, maybe you wouldn't be throwing your money away. But you have no way at all of knowing.
I'm trying to obtain the full version through the used market, and I'll report further if I do. If you can help me with this, please write bnewell@bobnewell.net .
Checkers 95 Review in progress
You can only play white; white moves first; and the double corner is on the wrong side. Best stay away from this one.
Strategic Games Checkers Review in progress
This is a freeware collection of several games, including checkers, with a selection of move search methods and playing strength. White always moves first and you can only play white. There is a serious bug which the author recognizes: 'Checkers does not allow selection of multi-move jumps.' So, if you have a choice of multi-move jumps, you don't get to pick which one you play. Sorry!
Playing on the 'supercomputer' setting with the alpha-beta search, Strategic Games Checkers loses quickly to Simple Checkers.
Castillo's Simple Checkers Review in progress
This one is another proof of concept, but doesn't have the playing strength of Martin Fierz's Simple Checkers, and lacks much of a set of evaluation rules. So it really doesn't serve any purpose that I can see. Martin Fierz's program would be a much better starting point for anyone looking for a playing algorithm or a place to start.
3D Checkers Unlimited Review in progress
Another flashy program that can't play checkers. Honestly, there is more of this kind of stuff out there than I can keep up with. Fortunately, none of us need waste our time on these.
CHECKERS FOR THE PALM PLATFORM
I've now put all the Palm reviews in one place. That makes sense for a couple of reasons; one is for ease of location, and the other is because they're all bad anyways and group together nicely for that reason.
It is sad, but there is just one Palm program that can even come close to Simple Checkers in playing strength, and that is a less-than-wonderful port to the Palm of Simple Checkers itself! Some are worse than others, but only that one is even in the Class D category, despite some wild claims by the authors and vendors.
Lest you think that good checkers can't be put on the Palm platform, consider that the very same Palm supports the Hiarcs chess program, which plays at nearly 2700 ELO strength, well into the grandmaster category. There is no excuse for Palm programs to play checkers at no better than the 1000-1200 level.
I might try re-porting Simple Checkers to the Palm, to see if I can make it come out better than the existing port. Martin Fierz has mentioned the possibility of a limited-memory port of Cake Manchester; now that would be something!
And now, on with the bad news.
This one has a nice interface with a choice of 2-D or a 3-D board, a selection of playing 'strengths' and a game review feature. All in all it's nicely done, and it's a pity that it's such a poor player. And, at the 'highest' level of play, it is incredibly slow even on my 400 MHz Tungsten C.
In fact, it's stronger than some other Palm programs, which is a sad tale. Some others play so badly they are even more of a waste of time. Cascata does a little better, but in my standard playoff against Simple Checkers, Cascata goes down easily. Is this program worth the $13 that Cascata asks? Only if you absolutely must have checkers on your Palm.
A screen shot is here. Not bad!
Playing Strength: Class F.
Feature Set: C
Interface: B
Overall: A poor player and intolerably slow at the highest level.
CheckersKing review in progress
This is a port, apparently unauthorized, of Martin Fierz' Simple Checkers engine, which as you've seen is used throughout in testing candidate programs against a medium-strength engine. The port is extremely plain, with no graphical appeal and no features at all, not even saved games or move review. There are nine levels of playing strength, as in the standard source code version of Simple Checkers. At level 9, the program uses about 15 seconds per move on my Tungsten C, which I consider reasonable.
I played this against PC Simple Checkers. I gave PC two seconds per move and I set Palm to level 9. I expected an evenly played draw (as I always get when I test PC in autoplay mode). This, in fact, did not happen. While the game was certainly a good one, PC did have the better of it, eventually winning a piece but then not untypically finding itself unable to win a 3 kings vs. 2 kings endgame; a draw via move repetition was the final result.
Still, this puts Palm in the Class D category; playing respectably against PC but still having the worse of it. Why wasn't it pretty even? I tried to compensate for the 2 GHz speed of PC, vs. the 400 Mhz speed of Palm, by limiting PC to 2 seconds per move and allowing Palm to take its time, as mentioned usually about 15 seconds. Palm had plenty of free memory (almost 40Mb) so for a program of this size, with no databases, that should not be an issue. Perhaps I didn't get the timing factor right? Perhaps the implementation on the Palm caused a drop in playing strength? I don't have the answer as yet but plan to experiment further.
So, should you spend the $5 the author asks for this program? Maybe; the program easily provideds that much value but perhaps you don't want to support an author who is trying to profit from an unauthorized implementation of someone else's work. (Had this been freeware my comments would of course differ.)
This is at the moment the best offering for the Palm of which I'm aware. But there is oh-so-much room for improvement.
Playing Strength: Class D
Feature Set: F
Interface: D
Overall: Sort of adequate, but disappointing; could have been much better done, and the author should have gotten an OK from Martin before putting this up for sale on a profit-making basis.
Checkers Plus review in progress
I thought I had finally found the right game for the Palm. Six levels of play, many varieties, save and restore features: alas, this one too is destroyed by Simple Checkers, even at the highest level of play, laughingly characterized as 'an incredibly strong computer opponent.' I spent $13 on this; you don't need to follow suit unless you want variety without playing strength.
There is little to tell between the six levels of play; they are all terrible, with the best level only a little better than the worst. At the lowest level it plays almost instantly; at the highest level, it still plays very fast (and that could be a problem). The major feature of this program is its ability to play numerous varieties, such as international, Russian, Pool, Canadian, and others. It plays them all badly, I imagine.
There is at least a move review and save game feature (but you can only save three games).
The display is really strange, with the black and red squares that some people think are a checkerboard, and black and gray pieces, making legibility poor. Take a look here.
Gee, you might get the idea I don't like this one....
Playing Strength: F
xCheckers review in progress
This is another one that plays several varieties (such as Russian) but not nearly as many as Checkers Plus. There are four levels of play, and the strongest level is quite a bit better than the weakest level.... but the strongest level is quite weak, if you follow my meaning. I spent $12 for this and wanted to cry as I watched Simple Checkers take it apart without even breathing hard.
There are a couple of features: move review, save to database and load from database. The display is orange and light purple squares with blue and red pieces. I am serious. Just look at this screenshot!
Playing Strength: Class F
ChromaGames review in progress
This is a combination package, incorporating chess, backgammon, and checkers. There are no features other than single-level undo; no save/load game, complete move review, etc. Nothing.
The display is nice enough, with charcoal and white squares and white and maroon pieces with a slight but attractive 3-D effect. This screenshot is quite nice.
Too bad it can't play; too bad I can't rate it lower than F. The program is a great match for a five-year old who learned to play yesterday evening, but give that kid a couple of days and it's all over for ChromaGames. This is clearly one of the worst in a bad crowd.
And they want $20 for it. Geez.
Playing Strength: Class F
