New Features During Thanksgiving Break

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Work has been a lot of fun, but very busy. As a result, I had not worked on my Android games (or other hobbies) for a very long time. This Thanksgiving break, therefore, I decided to take a few extra days off, and add some long overdue new support in my games.

For Checkers for Android, I finalized the support to connect an electronic board (just as was already done in the chess app), in particular for Certabo. The Certabo boards, mainly intended for chess, ship with 34 identifying chips that can be attached to any piece set, typically a full chess set with two additional queens). However, due to the flexibility of the chips, these boards can also be used for other 8x8 games, such as American checkers (enabling a full checkers set with ten additional kings). Version 3.1 brings this support to Google Play.


For Chess for Android, I added timer support for the DGT3000 chess clock. Up to recently, I only used the clock to prompt the most recently played move (with a beep to alert the player). Now, however, there is an option to synchronize the GUI clock with this external clock, so that players can stay fully immersed on the board, and don't have to consult the phone or tables. This feature is available from version 6.3 onwards on Google Play.

For both Checkers and Reversi for Android, I also added "spoken moves", as was already present in the chess app. All features are described in the online manual.

Finally, I also posted a new instructional video for Checkers for Android.







Comments

Aart Bik said…

Ingo Fränzel just emailed me some pictures of Checkers for Android in action on his eboard with checkers set. Have a look at my twitter posting:
https://twitter.com/AartBik/status/1335688444064923648
December 6, 2020 at 1:02 PM
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