Checkers for Android

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The number of downloads of Chess and Reversi for Android exceeded all my expectations, and I received a lot of nice feedback. The most popular request was for a checkers application. So I gave it a try and implemented Checkers for Android which, like Reversi and Chess for Android, is available for free at the Android Market.

Some screen shots are shown below. Since captures in checkers can consist of several jumps, I tried a new input mechanism where touching a square shows all valid moves that involve that square. By clicking on those squares (making orange colors red) eventually a move is uniquely defined. Also, the last played move is highlighted on the board (a feature requested for Chess and Reversi as well). The checkers engine plays at various levels (including random).

Comments

Elies Bik said…
Chess, Reversi, Checkers; Aart is the king of games! Kudo's for writing that checkers program so quickly. I hope that it will get as many downloads and great reviews as the previous games.
December 3, 2008 at 6:25 PM
Anonymous said…
I love the checkers game.
Thank you!!!
2 questions.
How does one set the difficulty level?
How difficult would it be to implement russian rules in the game?
That is, men can jump backwards and forwards, kings can jump any number of spaces.

Keep up the great work!
December 12, 2008 at 9:19 AM
Aart Bik said…
Thank you for your kind words. The difficulty level can be changed through "Menu", where you can chose one of the levels Random (very easy), Beginner (easy), Novice (harder), and Expert (hard). These levels also list the approximate time the computer will take for the move. Adding different rules to the game is not difficult in principle, but I have to think about how many variants I want to keep supporting :-)
December 12, 2008 at 9:35 AM
Anonymous said…
Alright I know this is an old post but I just got hooked on checkers!

Comment: The Menu options for difficulty is not intuitive at all. My options do NOT read Easy... Expert. Only a number of seconds is given.

Question: Is the higher the number of seconds equivalent to more difficulty? (As in, the computer is "thinking" longer to come up with a better move?)

Thanks!
February 9, 2010 at 1:23 PM
Aart Bik said…
Assuming you have the latest release (since this is a very old posting indeed), when you press the MENU button, then the Level button, you should see something that shows free-play, random, and levels 1 through 5 (with estimated thinking time). Indeed, for longer times, the engine thinks "deeper" which typically means stronger play. If you do not see these choices, please drop me an email with your phone specs. Hope this helps.
February 9, 2010 at 1:46 PM
schiavi91 said…
I'm working to create the game "checkers" in android because i want to bring it in my exam, but i don't know how do... Can you give me the source code about your program so that i can look it and i create my checkers?
June 12, 2011 at 4:37 AM
Teguh Santoso said…
may i have your code program for my thesis?
October 3, 2012 at 5:43 PM
Aart Bik said…
Hi Teguh Santoso,
My code is unfortunately not open source, but you can find an excellent online tutorial on checkers programming by Jonathan Kreuzer. Hopefully useful for your thesis.
Aart
October 4, 2012 at 5:01 PM
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