Behind the gameDesign
For everything we changed around backgammon, there was one thing we never intended to touch.
Backgammon itself.
There are still fifteen checkers. There are still twenty-four points. There are still two dice entirely capable of ruining an excellent plan.
A blot is still a risk. A prime is still a wall. The doubling cube can still turn a comfortable game into a test of nerve, and the deeper you go the more the game gives back.
The board is the game
Most mobile games treat the play area as one component among many. We went the other way. Every checker lift, hit, roll and bear-off was built to feel physical and immediate, on warm wood, felt and stone rather than a flat interface with a board pasted into the middle.
Nothing floats over the felt that does not need to be there. When the match is running, the season, the quests, the ladder and the collection all recede. Two players remain.
Where the ambition went instead
Into the parts you are not supposed to notice. A rules engine built and tested separately from the interface, against the details that make real backgammon awkward to implement: bar entry, forced moves, higher-die obligations, bearing off, gammons, backgammons and the cube.
Into online matches that are settled by the server rather than trusted to the device in someone's hand. Into dice you can verify yourself after the game rather than take on faith.
Most players will never see any of it, and that is exactly right. The engineering exists so that when the cube slides across the board, the only thing on your mind is whether you are going to take it.
We are not building a retention system that happens to contain backgammon. We are building backgammon that gives you reasons to return.