Backgammon + Checkers + Mills

Look, I cover shooters for a living, so when this landed on my desk I did what any reasonable person would do: I sat down, played all three games against the AI, and asked myself whether this holds up as a pass-the-keyboard local experience. The honest answer is: it does exactly what it says, nothing more. The collection gives you backgammon, checkers, and Nine Men's Morris (Mills), all three supporting either local two-player or solo play against the AI. The boards come with multiple visual themes and, more usefully, customisable rule sets. That last part matters more than it sounds. House rules for these games vary wildly depending on who taught you to play, so being able to bend the ruleset to your preferences is a practical feature, not a cosmetic one. The AI is competent but uneven across the three titles. The Mills AI in particular shipped with bugs serious enough that the developer pushed a patch specifically to fix erratic behaviour and improve its performance. Credit for shipping the fix, but it is worth knowing the baseline was rough. Backgammon and checkers feel more stable. There is no difficulty selector marketed prominently anywhere, and if you are a practiced backgammon player you will likely find the AI ceiling low fairly quickly. The bigger issue is scope. There is no online multiplayer at all. Local co-op and local multiplayer are your options, which in 2024 on PC means you either share a keyboard and monitor with someone in the same room, or you play solo. For a casual evening with a friend or family member sitting next to you, that works fine. For anyone expecting to run a few games against a remote opponent, this is simply the wrong product. No ranked ladder, no matchmaking, no netcode to worry about. Clean, frictionless, and limited. As a pure digital board game implementation it is inoffensive. The UI is clean enough to not get in the way, the rule customisation is a genuine positive, and the three-game format gives you variety without bloat. What it is not is a serious implementation of any of these games for players who want depth, AI challenge, or an online ladder. It sits firmly in the sub-five-dollar tier for a reason. Fred, Scout Team