ImageNorth - Top Game Reviews Blog

The internet now makes life more interesting and challenging by providing you with numerous online games to play. So if you wish to play a game of Backgammon, and have no one to play the game with, all you have to do is play the game on the internet, with your computer.

Backgammon is no new game; which has been around for quite some time. It is played with two players, with pieces as checkers of the game. The winner of the game is the one who moves the checkers off the table first. However as you play your dice, make sure you don’t leave a checker single, without another checker placed on top of it. This is because if you leave the checker, the opponent can easily land on it and send it to the farthest position of the board, the bar.

Backgammon is a board game that is played by people of all ages, and from all spheres of life. This is a game that requires talent and skill so that challenges the opponent places, and dice hurdles can be overcome. One of the largest tournaments in Backgammon history is the Backgammon Open that brings all acclaimed Backgammon players together for its large prize.

The game of Backgammon starts with the computer rolling a die for each player. The person who rolls the higher number gets to use these numbers as the first roll. You then move one piece the number shown on one die, and move either the same die or another die the number on the other die. Obviously, both players move in opposite directions.

Clicking on ‘Roll Dice’ lets you make your, and your partner’s consecutive moves in Backgammon. Pieces can be moved using the mouse to click and drag the piece to the required point. It is possible to move to any empty point in Backgammon or to any point your pieces may have already occupied. This is not at all dependant on the number of pieces found there. By blotting, you move to a point where only one of the opponent’s pieces are found and place the piece on the bar. However you are not permitted to occupy any place that has more than one opponent piece on it.

Board games generally involve people playing the game with counters and maybe even with pieces that have to be placed on as well as removed from and also moved over the board which is a surface with markings relevant to a particular game. The simpler type of board games is very often well suited for entertainment in a family environment and they can be played by people of all ages. Amongst the more popular board games you will find chess, oware, go/weiqi and also xiangqi that are games that require having strategies for winning and which have been played for many centuries as well.

The number of board games are many and so too are their types with some that actually tend to simulate real life situations and among the more popular of such games we can find monopoly, Clue and Risk. Monopoly is a game that is a simulation of real estate business while Clue is a game that is like a murder mystery and Risk deals with the topic of war. A board game with some strategic value is the one known as Checkers that is played by two players and in which moves require moving pieces in a diagonal fashion accompanied by capturing the opponent’s pieces which involves also leapfrogging over the captured piece’s square on the board.

The British version of Checkers that is also known as English Draughts is played on a board having ten rows and ten columns, while the American version uses eight rows and eight columns and besides these two popular versions, there are also a few other variations of the game as well.

Essentially, playing of Checkers involves two players that sit opposite one another and who make moves alternating between one player and the opponent. It is usual for one person to play with dark pieces while the other will play with lighter pieces and it is the person playing with dark pieces that begins the game unless agreed to otherwise. The pieces can be moved in a diagonal direction and when an opponent’s piece is encountered it can be captured and in the process you can jump over the captured piece.

Play is confined to the dark squares on the board and pieces can only be moved to squares that are vacant and capturing the opponent’s pieces is almost mandatory though in some variants of the game it may be optional. When a piece is captured by the opponent, it is removed from the board and a player with no pieces left or who cannot move his available pieces will have lost the game.

When a piece is captured you can jump over the square where the captured piece was laying and this means that often it is possible to capture several pieces of your opponent and thus jump a number of squares in doing so. Another variation to the game of Checkers is that in English Draughts it is not allowed to capture pieces except by a forward movement though in international Checkers it is also possible to capture pieces in a backward movement. And, on reaching the kings row, the piece is crowned as a king which gives the piece more powers.

There are two main types of board games and these are games that are based on strategy and those which are related to racing. As far as the racing type of board games are concerned they come in different guises including moral, educational and also fun as well as competitive and it requires two plus numbers of players that must play against one another with a view to winning the game. There are different types of race games with some being quite simple while others are very complex and a simple board game such as Snakes and Ladders would require just one playing piece to be moved by a set track that is moved from start until the finish.

A good example of a racing board game is the one named Pachisi and Ludo that requires as much luck as it does skill and this board game has been played for, it is believed, as many as twelve hundred years and more in India. Pachisi is a name that is derived from a word in the Indian language that stands for the numeral twenty-five that is, in this game, the maximum number that will be able to be thrown using cowry-shells that are used for playing the game. Even today, this game is being played in many Indian homes and also cafes and most often it requires boards that are made out of cloth that is decorated and which is foldable so that it can be borne with the players wherever they wish to take it.

The panel of cloth is shaped as a cross and consists of patchwork with different colors as well as cotton prints though the more costly sets will have markers made from rock crystals and often the markers are also made out of wood. To play the game of Pachisi use is made of a couple of dice of oblong shape though it is also possible to use cowry shells that total five in number and how many moves are allowed is determined by how many shells show their highest openings. The goal for each player is to move each of his four markers from the beginning to the end while traversing the entire board in the process. In addition, the opposing players are allowed to capture and thus put the captured marker at the start once more, though there are twelve places on the board that are safe from capture.

Ludo is also quite similar to Pachisi although in this game there is an absence of any safe places for the markers and is thus a lot simpler to play and there is only a single die used in place of the cowry shells. Designs for the Ludo board are varied and it is usual to have crosses that are either set against shapes of diamond or even those that are shaped like squares, though the latter form is most commonly used.