Backgammon: Blot/JanusBlot

[BG7]

I'd like to announce here our freeware backgammon program using QB64:
Blot/JanusBlot

It is a real "oldtimer" - first appearance in 1984 - with old fashioned retro graphics -
but a unique AI (handcrafted evaluation, no neural net).

Blot/JanusBlot is hosted here, together with the 1. Backgammon-computer ranking list, please have a look at:
www.mustrum.de/blot.html

The site is in german. If you download Blot respectively JanusBlot (recommended)
there is a short description and documentation in english.

Have fun !

Hans-Jürgen

[_vince]

shesh besh!

[BG7]

shesh besh!

Hi Vince !

No, not really - Blot plays backgammon (not shesh besh) !

Shesh Besh is a Turkish game very similar to backgammon -
although the set up is the same, there are some differences !

The main difference:
in shesh besh there is no doubling in this game, whereas Blot respectively
JanusBlot can make use of the cube !

The winner of the opening roll rerolls for his first turn - that's not allowed in backgammon.

Beside this, the scoring of gammon/backgammon is a little bit different.

Blot/JanusBlot is suitable for novices to experts, on average the play is
estimated to be at an intermediate/advanced level.

As you can see here, the 1. Backgammon-computer rating list:
www.mustrum.de/blot.html

Does anybody know another backgammon game using QB64 ?

Have fun with Blot/JanusBlot !

[_vince]

do you know about the 'nardy' variant? different set up but is it more complicated?  which backgammon variant you best like?

i wonder if your program can support different variants if they are just simple rule changes

[BG7]

do you know about the 'nardy' variant? different set up but is it more complicated?  which backgammon variant you best like?

i wonder if your program can support different variants if they are just simple rule changes

No, I don't know the "nardy" variant - I'm no expert of backgammon variants.

It shouldn't be too difficult to implement variants with simple rules changes -
but probably we won't do that.

The main reason: the source code is just huge and difficult to maintain,
already hardly manageable.
We started in 1984 and in the course of time the program grew bigger and bigger:
source now about 4 MB !! Still growing...

Blot has always been freeware - but the source code is not available, sorry
(one of my co-authors wants to keep it private).

Blot has worn out a lot of debuggers and compilers - except QB64 - at the moment
it takes more than 6 minutes to compile the current source code.

Where are the limits of QB64 ? We're about to find out...