Review: Checkers
Score:
82%
Version Reviewed: 2.00(01)
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Now the S60 v3 software is starting to show up, and it’s a predictable mix of new titles and reworked classics. ZingMagic’s Checkers (or Draughts for old school readers) is exactly the same as has been played for countless years.
What I like about Checkers on a computer is that you can beat it. At least at the lower levels… as you choose to play against the higher skill level players in Checkers, it starts to get much harder. This is not only the mark of good game design (every player can rise up to a challenging level) but also the mark of good code – writing the perfect computer player is easy. Writing one that works at various difficulty levels? That’s the mark of genius.
Of course ZingMagic have been around for a long time in various guises and names, as has their Checkers application – so there’s a lot of familiarity in this application. It’s one I’ve seen going as far back as the Psion Series 5 running, effectively Symbian OS 1.01. But that means the Checkers “engine” has been polished to the point where you can get the variety of skill levels I was talking about earlier.
It’s also had a huge amount of people using, and giving feedback, on the application, so the interface is clear, uncluttered, and easy to use. While the feature of choosing (creating) an opponent might seem a little bit strange when playing on your own, it becomes clearer when you look at the options available in setting up that player.
Checkers allows you to play someone over SMS or Email. When you create a new player, you get the option of choosing a computer opponent or choosing the “Player” icon, and you can either input a mobile number directly or be presented with your contacts list and can select someone to play over SMS. It’s missing a find function, so scrolling to find 'Steve' in my list of hundreds of people took a while!
The interface in the game on my N91 was at first a little bit confusing., You move a cursor to select a playing piece, and then move it to where you want to finish. All well and good, but once you’ve picked up a piece, using the cursor scrolls through the available spaces – so you get the situation where you hit ‘right’ and the piece gets placed on the ‘left’ square in front of you. Neep! If you switch to using the number pad (i.e. the cross made up of 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8), you can move the piece square by square till you get to where you want to go. I didn't like the 'available space' interface, so maybe an option would be good, to choose which system you prefer?
I think Checkers is a great mobile game. It offers a lot of challenge and strategy in games that generally last at most about ten minutes. The ability to play via SMS is a quirky addition, but does harness the power of a mobile phone. It would be nice to see email offered as a transmission option as well. But that’s minor. Checkers does exactly what it sets out to do, and it’s definitely recommended.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at