Alejo's Tenuki

A few weeks ago we already announced the Android fever (what is android?) which was going on among the Go community. We made a small review on gobandroid, acego and koalago, leaving two more applications for a second review: KGS and Hubango.

Instead of reviewing these pieces of software, I’d like to comment on an uncommon application I found recently, its name: GOdroid.
GOdroid is the first published attempt to have an artificial intelligence on our mobile phones, it features GnuGo 3.8 with board sizes from 9×9 to 19×19 and handicap. According to the developer’s announcement the strength of this program ranges from 8k to 12k, which may pose a nice challenge when given handicap.Customizing the time limits would be a good feature for the next update, since increasing its thinking time limits would improve its strength. Personally, playing this engine on a desktop computer with longer time settings proves a nice challenge, while I can regularly beat this software on my Android.
What happens when this application is played on a more powerful device? Most mainstream android phones around have a core running at around 300-500 Mhz, but there are more powerful ones coming out such as Nexus one with 1 Ghz. Will the bot’s thinking time be reduced or the strength increased? If anyone wants to send me a Nexus One so that I can try it, contact me by email

When it comes to the interface, there aren’t any big innovations but the fact that it allows to play stones through 2 systems:
a) First tap on the screen to place, second to confirm.
b) Move the stone with the track ball and press it to confirm.
Personally, the best results are obtained by placing the stone with the finger and making small corrections or confirming with the track ball.

The applications is released as freeware and you can download it directly from your android market.

Update: as kaliya pointed out at the commentaries, GOdroid isn’t correctly displayed on phones with QVGA (320×240, such as HTC tattoo) or lower resolutions. Please, check your screen resolution if you find any problems with the board display. Other mainstream devices, such as HTC Dream or Magic, have a slightly higher resolution.

Related posts:

1. Gobandroid features Gnugo too
2. Android Go applications