Aart's Blog

Since I just got some questions on the different levels in my Android games, I hope the following posting on this topic is helpful. To change the level in either Chess, Checkers, or Reversi for Android, first press the Menu button on your phone, then pick the Level option, which gives you something that looks like the following screenshot. Then select any of these levels. Here, Free Play means that the game engine will never compute a reply. Instead, the phone can be used as a "magnetic board" to study games or play a game up to a position for further play with the engine. In Random , the engine will instantaneously pick a valid next move at random. Pick this level if you like to win! The next Level 1 through Level 5 select different normal playing levels, increasing in both strength as well as time taken by the engine to compute its next move. Finally, Chess for Android also has an Auto Play option where the engine plays against itself. After selecting this level, eith

I just released a new version of Chess for Android that, like the previous updates of the other games, improves the text size on larger screens. On the Nexus One, for example, the notation window in previous versions was barely readable. This is now hopefully resolved for all current phones. Next planned updates consist of adding a small opening book and an option to export a game to some external format.

I just released new versions of Checkers and Reversi for Android that improve the text size on larger screens. The reversi application now also uses a randomized opening for variety of play (see below).

I just released v1.2.2 of Checkers for Android with the following improvements: + improved endgame play + randomized opening for variety + announces win/loss The latter feature is illustrated in the screenshot below. Please let me know if you encounter any issues with the new features.

Just a few unrelated updates. First, the Android App Review Source website posted a brief online interview with me on developing Android applications. Also, version 2.01 of BikJump ended at second place in the CCC 17th Amateur Series (Division 8) , which opens the possibility of promotion to a higher division. Many thanks to Graham Banks for running this tournament! Finally, Martin Fierz published Checkers Tutor for Android , a strong checkers program for Android.