Announcing Gridmaster (Android app)

[Inkwolf]

Well, I didn't have time to give it a full testing on my lunch break, but it seems to work fine, and the AI can still kick my butt apparently.

My suggestions:

1. The settings are hard to find. You have to click on 'tools', then 'Options', then 'settings.' It's not really intuitive because the 'options' button is kind of unobtrusive, and I would assume those are options for the tools, rather than the rest of the game. Maybe Options or Settings could be a different button from Tools, available from the main page.

2. It would be nice if your settings were saved. I find that when I come back to the app after shutting down, and start a new game, I have to change the board size, rules set, etc. completely again as it goes back to the default settings.

I don't know if you're responsible for the AI, but I seem to recall that in the endgame, it makes some really nonsensical moves that give me free points. (in Japanese Rules mode, anyway...not sure if they'd make better sense in Chinese, since I have not played Chinese rules much.)

I have not tested the tools and commentary section at all.

But I'm surprised you're getting bad reviews, Gridmaster seems quite decent to me, and I don't think there are very many apps for English-speaking players who want to play the Chinese ruleset.

[evdw]

Thanks Inkwolf, this is useful input!

I introduced the options button in the tools tab as a work-around for devices that don't have a native options menu button (which is something Google is trying to get rid of, but is still present on many devices). E.g., on a Galaxy S4 you can just press the bottom left hardware button from any tab to get to the settings in one less step. Unfortunately on some screen sizes there is not much space left, so I have to think of a clever way to improve this...

BTW I was kind of hoping that the default settings are reasonably good, so that it is not critical to find them immediately. If anyone feels a certain setting is likely to be a poor default that also would be useful input. (E.g., I changed the default sound for placing a stone and maybe some people prefer the old system beep).

Saving the settings is a very good point. Thanks! Currently they are only saved when you exit the settings activity. If something is changed upon a new-game, you have to go in-and-out of the settings to get it saved. Should be something I can easily fix though

Yes, I also wrote the AI. The occasional nonsensical endgame moves are a common issue in MCTS bots. They occur because the engine does not distinguish between winning big and winning small. It just tries to maximize the probability of winning, and if the win is secure (even if it's only by 0.5 points) all else is considered irrelevant. I do have some ideas to change the endgame behavior so that it becomes more human-like, but since it will not improve actual playing strength (and there is even a risk it gets weaker) it is not high on my to-do-list.

[evdw]

I think I figured out what was causing the occasional bad reviews. On non-ARM cpu's the Steenvreter lite engine doesn't work (because it is compiled for ARM). As a temporary fix I just excluded incompatible devices. A nicer solution would of course be to get a different binary, but that needs some more work and testing...

Regarding Inkwolf's feedback. The latest version now has another entry point to the options menu directly left from the clocks (so you don't have to go to tools first). Also, the settings are now saved more frequently, and there are a bunch of other small improvements.

Update (24/9): Android devices with an i686 cpu are now fully supported as well

[evdw]

Incompatible with my device (Android 2.3) - oh well.

You may be interest to know that I just uploaded a new version that should support your device.

[sybob]

I recently came across Gridmaster - Steenvreter.
Yes, there's always something to comment on, but overall I think it is excellent.
Kudos to the maker.
I do not understand why there have not been more downloads. Everyone (on Android) should use it. Totally wonderful.

[Sneegurd]

I cannot praise this app high enough. You are doing things right. I love the look of it, the possibility to zoom, setup games and comments and study... the options, the interface. My favourite app for studying Joseki and playing against Gnugo. The semi auto download of engines is great!

I have a few suggestions, to make it better.

- Please add additional input methods (stylus, auto zoom, pre-place + submit). Currently it is not possible to enter moves on small smartphones without zooming.

- A match interface, maybe the option to hide the bottom bar. To make it least distractive for matches. It's just because we have a goban on black background. But then the bottom bar is pretty bright.You're already doing things well here. E.g. full screen, zooming, and full use of screen dimensions. It's so important. There are so many apps wasting room which is just a shame on small devices. I am using a Sony Z1 btw.

- A landscape interface! I'd use this for marketing then as well, as I can tell you, people search for such interfaces for their tablets. Also, screen sharing smartphone-> big TVs is very common meanwhile, but this is only useful with landscape mode.
This would be the optimal app for presentations!

- Not interested in your AI engine btw, simply because Gnugo is enough for me. I'd recommend you to use your development time to make the app better.

Good luck, I'd happily pay this App some money. Pricing is a difficult case and you cannot demand for too much in the Android market, I'd probably go for like ~3 EUR. More will be hard to sell.

[evdw]

Thank you Sneegurd, I'm glad you like my app.

I'll have a look at your suggestions to see if I can implement them in a future version. Switching between portrait and landscape has caused me some headaches in the past (it has a lot of side effects that can mess things up), but maybe I can find a solution.

About the remark:

"Currently it is not possible to enter moves on small smartphones without zooming."

I can place stones just fine on even the smallest screens without zooming. The trick is to slide your finger away so that you can see where the stone is before releasing it. (If you cannot slide away far enough, just increase the value for "max offset" in the settings.) Just like on a real board, as long as you still touch the stone/screen the move is not yet made.

Best,
Erik

[evdw]

Added a paid version without ads:

http://play.google.com/store/apps/detai ... dmaster.go

[Sneegurd]

Thanks Erik, I like the method of how moves are entered. I wasn't aware there is a paid version btw...

I have a suggestion, I think something is missing. You already support opening of sgf collections in zip files, I guess multi game sgf would also work. I often zip files with game reviews in order to study games. In Gridmaster, there is no overview of the games contained in the zip file. I can navigate with up/down arrows, but no overview whatsoever.

Have I overlooked something?

Also, Pachi never worked on my Sony Z1. Nothing happens, it does not move... There is a Pachi app in Playstore, so I think there can be a working binary.

Best regards

[Sneegurd]

Hey Erik, something else. Drago is able to create Fuseki Tree SGFs which have information in their variations (how often has variation been played, win percentage).

In Drago this is displayed in the information screen. In Gridmaster, there is no way to display the statistics information. Can you maybe do something about it? Great for studying...
Here is an example Fuseki file:
http://xmp.net/arno/fuseki.html

[evdw]

Hi Sneegurd, Thanks for the feedback!

You're right. Gridmaster currently treats zip files exactly the same as sgf collections (i.e., multiple game trees in one file). It simply loads all the sgf files it can find and combines them as if they are one big collection. You can then switch trees/games by using the up/down buttons in the root position (use push+slide to go through many quickly). The reason I did it this way is that file selection is handled externally through intents (i.e., by other apps or the native installed file management). This helps to keep the app small, but the downside is that I currently don't have any file-browsing functionality inside. One way to find a specific game may be to zoom out a bit and look at the game title, which is displayed above the board (when available), but I agree that for large collections this may still be an inconvenient way to search. I'll make a note to see if I can find a better solution.

I'm not sure what the problem is with Pachi. It works fine on my phone, but it might be that it needs some different compile settings for your hardware. Do you see any specific errors in the debug tab (in the settings select: debug, GTP i/o & GTP err)?

The binaries on my site should work for most people, but it is impossible for me to check all possible device types (Gridmaster currently support over 10000 Android device types, which is hard enough for Steenvreter alone). Pachi is open source, so if you're up for some experimentation you could try to compile it yourself using a cross-compiler, upload it to your Android device, and then add it to Gridmaster in the settings. Alternatively you could rip the engine from the Pachi app (assuming that one does work on your hardware). Contact me privately if you want to know how to do that.

Thanks for pointing out that fuseki file. I see the information is stored in the node names (you can see it under tools->modify->node name, but obviously that is very inconvenient). I'll have a look at showing this information more directly.

Best,
Erik

[Sneegurd]

Thank you for your reply and looking into it!
Pachi works! - with your help (debug log was alright) I found out it was my fault. I have set clock to "No clock" and in this case Pachi never seems to make a move.

I wonder if I can make Pachi use Fuego opening books. On Windows, I simply put the opening book (lets call it "example.dat") into the pachi binary dir and call Pachi with "-f example.dat" flag. Now on Android I have no access. I put it into "\storage\emulated\o\Go\book\example.dat" and call Pachi with "-f \storage\emulated\o\Go\book\example.dat" - it does not use it...

[Bonobo]

[..] it was my fault. I have set clock to "No clock" and in this case Pachi never seems to make a move.

[..]

Pachi probably was delighted and thought to itself, “whee, how nice, I can think forever!”

Would be interesting to know whether it was really thinking or whether it just fell into coma.

(pls forgive the off-topic)

[Sneegurd]

As for Pachi, I also wonder if it can be told not to resign. E.g., if you play a 9x9 with some handicap for Pachi, it instantly resigns on first move.

[evdw]

I'm not familiar with Pachi's opening book functionality, but you specified a windows path, which will definitely not work on Android. On Linux/Android the path separators are slashes. I.e., try something like: "-f /storage/emulated/o/Go/book/example.dat"

A quick look at the Pachi source (uct/uct.c) suggests that you could try command line options such as "resign_threshold=0" or "maximize_score".