Backgammon is one of the oldest games we know. Boards much like the ones we use today appear thousands of years ago, long before phone screens. The rules arrived almost untouched: twenty-four points, fifteen checkers a side, two dice, and the race to bear all your checkers off before the other player. A game like that needs no reinventing. It needs a good place to live.
You roll the dice, and they tell you how far you can move. You move checkers point to point, hit the ones left alone, re-enter what was hit, and start bearing off once everything reaches your corner. First to bear off wins. Gammon and backgammon count the way they always have. No doubling cube, no betting, no points tally. It is a choice: BLA wanted the kitchen-table backgammon, the one you play for the game, not the wager.
You can play two-up on the same iPhone, each on one side, taking turns. Good for teaching someone, good for a rematch on the spot. And you can play solo against the machine, in three levels: from your first contact with the game to a match that makes you think. The machine decides on the device itself, no internet.
The checkers have weight, in ivory and charcoal. The dice catch the light. And when you tilt the phone, the shadows follow, as if the board were right there in front of you, catching the light from the window. A small detail. But it is what separates looking at a screen from holding a board in your hand.
It opens offline. No sign-up, no ads, nothing collected. Your match is saved: close it midway, come back later, and it is there. For a quick round in the elevator or a whole afternoon.
BLA is an independent editorial studio, directed by Ivan Grycuk. Gamão BLA was developed in Goiânia 🇧🇷. Like every BLA work, it was made for a person, with real time and attention. Apps for people.