Dog Board Game

Stability improvements for multi-player games over Game Center

Made changes in player colors, positions and individual bot characters accessible to VoiceOver. We would like to thank A.T. for testing these improvements.

Increased button sizes, fixed some translation issues, and resolved an issue that prevented some users from playing with others locally, via Bluetooth/WiFi. We would like to thank K.F., O.O., G.P., V.S, M.v.S., K.W. for their hints and tests.

Resolves an issue on iOS 18.1 that prevented some users from playing with others locally, via Bluetooth/WiFi. We would like to thank K.W. for pointing us to this issue.

Adapted to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18

Adapted to iOS 17

This update fixes two issues that affected some users: - Bluetooth disconnected during local games with devices running iOS 15. - Zoom while selecting a marble in voice-over-mode would hide part of the board unnecessarily. We would like to thank M.T. and P.T. for pointing us to one of these issues.

VoiceOver for blind and visually impaired players. In this update we want to make Dog accessible to blind persons and people with impaired vision. We adapted the app to the use of VoiceOver and particularly the rotor feature. Once you switch on VoiceOver, playing with these aids should be relatively intuitive, at least if you have some experience with other apps using VoiceOver and the rotor. Let us know if you have improvement suggestions. We would like to thank S.M. warmly for pointing us into this direction and for testing thoroughly.

Many of you play Dog together through our app in these challenging times, and we are happy to enable it. For games between couples confined at different homes, we recommend that only two players connect through Game Center, and that the others join locally via Bluetooth/Wi-Fi. Some of you still report issues with Game Center, please take a detailed look at our instructions at dogapp.ch/faq. This update works around half a dozen further scenarios that can lead to interruptions. The servers seem to be less overloaded, too, but unfortunately we cannot avoid all reasons for instabilities. "We spent a wonderful evening yesterday with the Dog app. There were problems with the connection, and we had to try several times, but in the end it worked and with an accompanying video call it's almost like normal :-)"

Thank you for rank 3 among all games in the Swiss App Store! We can now work around several issues in games over the Internet, and Apple seems to have improved the reliability of their servers. Nevertheless Game Center is still less stable than we would expect. Check out dogapp.ch/faq to find hints how to play together under current constraints on social distancing. "We spent a wonderful evening yesterday with the Dog app. There were problems with the connection, and we had to try several times, but in the end it worked and with an accompanying video call it's almost like normal :-)"

Play with the new Mac version of our app!

Minor bug fixes, improved contrast of colored texts, updated our web addresses

Adapted to iOS 12 and the newest iPhones

Adapted to iOS 11

2.2: - Fixed an issue with occasionally too large hand cards on 3rd and 4th generation iPad. Thanks to A.B., R., M.P., R.H., E.R., W.O., B.M. for notifying us through the suggestions button of the instructions page in the app! 2.1: - Fixed multiplayer over Bluetooth - Adapted to newest devices iPad Pro, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6s - Adapted to iOS 9.2 Because of a technology upgrade this version cannot play locally with older versions of the app. This update implements suggestions by A.B., E.B., C.G., N.G., W.O., M.P., T.S., V.S., and S.T. Thanks to all of you!

- Fixed multiplayer over Bluetooth - Adapted to newest devices iPad Pro, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6s - Adapted to iOS 9.2 Because of a technology upgrade this version cannot play locally with older versions of the app. This update implements suggestions by A.B., E.B., C.G., N.G., W.O., M.P., T.S., V.S., and S.T. Thanks to all of you!

2.0.4: Fixes an issue with larger iOS 9 fonts on buttons 2.0.2: Stability improvements 2.0.1: Various bug fixes. In particular we fixed two bugs where combinations of rarely used settings within and outside of the app lead to a frozen game or an immediate crash. We thank E.B., P.B., R.B., M.F., A.G., R.G., E.H., M.J., S.K., E.N., V.S., and B.T., whose specific hints pointed us to the source of the errors. 2.0: We are listening to your suggestions and have implemented the most popular ones. We offer now the following rule variants: - Canadian Seven: A Seven may be split among all of a team's marbles, including own and partner marbles. Such splits are available during the entire game and not just when all own marbles have reached the target area. This enables more complex moves. - Joker cannot win: A Joker may not be used for the final move to enter a team's last marble and win the game. This prolongs the game and improves the trailing team's chances to win. Variants may be selected separately or in combination. The complexity of the game literally explodes with the Canadian 7 split rule. Millions of different moves are possible in some situations. We had to rebuild almost everything to ensure that even in such cases you can select every possible move without delay, and that our bot players can analyze and compare every single move. We have therefore decided to offer these variants as in-app purchases. We have adopted most of iOS 8 design, but still support older devices running iOS 6 and 7. We further improved the playing strength of our bots in a few specific cases, but did not focus on bot strengthening in this update. Please do continue to give us 5-star ratings and comments. However we prefer if you use the ""Suggestion"" button in the app to send us e-mail in case you have requests, suggestions, or questions on the use of our app or the behavior of our bots. Unfortunately, App Store comments are not suited for such requests. This update is based on suggestions by A.J., A.K., A.L., A.M., E.R., F., G.B., K., L.B., M.N., M.R., M.Z., M., N.S., P.B., P.D., R.A., R.B., R.G., R.P., R.R., S.B., S.K., and S.

2.0.2: Stability improvements 2.0.1: Various bug fixes. In particular we fixed two bugs where combinations of rarely used settings within and outside of the app lead to a frozen game or an immediate crash. We thank E.B., P.B., R.B., M.F., A.G., R.G., E.H., M.J., S.K., E.N., V.S., and B.T., whose specific hints pointed us to the source of the errors. 2.0: We are listening to your suggestions and have implemented the most popular ones. We offer now the following rule variants: - Canadian Seven: A Seven may be split among all of a team's marbles, including own and partner marbles. Such splits are available during the entire game and not just when all own marbles have reached the target area. This enables more complex moves. - Joker cannot win: A Joker may not be used for the final move to enter a team's last marble and win the game. This prolongs the game and improves the trailing team's chances to win. Variants may be selected separately or in combination. The complexity of the game literally explodes with the Canadian 7 split rule. Millions of different moves are possible in some situations. We had to rebuild almost everything to ensure that even in such cases you can select every possible move without delay, and that our bot players can analyze and compare every single move. We have therefore decided to offer these variants as in-app purchases. We have adopted most of iOS 8 design, but still support older devices running iOS 6 and 7. We further improved the playing strength of our bots in a few specific cases, but did not focus on bot strengthening in this update. Please do continue to give us 5-star ratings and comments. However we prefer if you use the ""Suggestion"" button in the app to send us e-mail in case you have requests, suggestions, or questions on the use of our app or the behavior of our bots. Unfortunately, App Store comments are not suited for such requests. This update is based on suggestions by A.J., A.K., A.L., A.M., E.R., F., G.B., K., L.B., M.N., M.R., M.Z., M., N.S., P.B., P.D., R.A., R.B., R.G., R.P., R.R., S.B., S.K., and S.

2.0.2: Stability improvements 2.0.1: Various bug fixes. In particular we fixed two bugs where combinations of rarely used settings within and outside of the app lead to a frozen game or an immediate crash. We thank E.B., P.B., R.B., M.F., A.G., R.G., E.H., M.J., S.K., E.N., V.S., and B.T., whose specific hints pointed us to the source of the errors. 2.0: We are listening to your suggestions and have implemented the most popular ones. We offer now the following rule variants: - Canadian Seven: A Seven may be split among all of a team's marbles, including own and partner marbles. Such splits are available during the entire game and not just when all own marbles have reached the target area. This enables more complex moves. - Joker cannot win: A Joker may not be used for the final move to enter a team's last marble and win the game. This prolongs the game and improves the trailing team's chances to win. Variants may be selected separately or in combination. The complexity of the game literally explodes with the Canadian 7 split rule. Millions of different moves are possible in some situations. We had to rebuild almost everything to ensure that even in such cases you can select every possible move without delay, and that our bot players can analyze and compare every single move. We have therefore decided to offer these variants as in-app purchases. We have adopted most of iOS 8 design, but still support older devices running iOS 6 and 7. We further improved the playing strength of our bots in a few specific cases, but did not focus on bot strengthening in this update. Please do continue to give us 5-star ratings and comments. However we prefer if you use the ""Suggestion"" button in the app to send us e-mail in case you have requests, suggestions, or questions on the use of our app or the behavior of our bots. Unfortunately, App Store comments are not suited for such requests. This update is based on suggestions by A.J., A.K., A.L., A.M., E.R., F., G.B., K., L.B., M.N., M.R., M.Z., M., N.S., P.B., P.D., R.A., R.B., R.G., R.P., R.R., S.B., S.K., and S. " 2.0: We are listening to your suggestions and have implemented the most popular ones. We offer now the following rule variants: - Canadian Seven: A Seven may be split among all of a team's marbles, including own and partner marbles. Such splits are available during the entire game and not just when all own marbles have reached the target area. This enables more complex moves. - Joker cannot win: A Joker may not be used for the final move to enter a team's last marble and win the game. This prolongs the game and improves the trailing team's chances to win. Variants may be selected separately or in combination. The complexity of the game literally explodes with the Canadian 7 split rule. Millions of different moves are possible in some situations. We had to rebuild almost everything to ensure that even in such cases you can select every possible move without delay, and that our bot players can analyze and compare every single move. We have therefore decided to offer these variants as in-app purchases. We have adopted most of iOS 8 design, but still support older devices running iOS 6 and 7. We further improved the playing strength of our bots in a few specific cases, but did not focus on bot strengthening in this update. Please do continue to give us 5-star ratings and comments. However we prefer if you use the ""Suggestion"" button in the app to send us e-mail in case you have requests, suggestions, or questions on the use of our app or the behavior of our bots. Unfortunately, App Store comments are not suited for such requests. This update is based on suggestions by A.J., A.K., A.L., A.M., E.R., F., G.B., K., L.B., M.N., M.R., M.Z., M., N.S., P.B., P.D., R.A., R.B., R.G., R.P., R.R., S.B., S.K., and S.

We are listening to your suggestions and have implemented the most popular ones. We offer now the following rule variants: - Canadian Seven: A Seven may be split among all of a team's marbles, including own and partner marbles. Such splits are available during the entire game and not just when all own marbles have reached the target area. This enables more complex moves. - Joker cannot win: A Joker may not be used for the final move to enter a team's last marble and win the game. This prolongs the game and improves the trailing team's chances to win. Variants may be selected separately or in combination. The complexity of the game literally explodes with the canadian 7 split rule. Millions of different moves are possible in some situations. We had to rebuild almost everything to ensure that even in such cases you can select every possible move without delay, and that our bot players can analyze and compare every single move. We have therefore decided to offer these variants as in-app purchases. We have adopted most of iOS 8 design, but still support older devices running iOS 6 and 7. We further improved the playing strength of our bots in a few specific cases, but did not focus on bot strengthening in this update. Please do continue to give us 5-star ratings and comments. However we prefer if you use the "Suggestion" button in the app to send us e-mail in case you have requests, suggestions, or questions on the use of our app or the behavior of our bots. Unfortunately, App Store comments are not suited for such requests. This update is based on suggestions by A.J., A.K., A.L., A.M., E.R., F., G.B., K., L.B., M.N., M.R., M.Z., M., N.S., P.B., P.D., R.A., R.B., R.G., R.P., R.R., S.B., S.K., and S.

Multiplayer games over Game Center or with nearby devices are now easier to set up.

Visual adaptations to iOS 7.

We further improved the bots, specifically at blockades, when sending home from a start field, in the end game with several own marbles, and in the end game of the opponents. All enhancements are based on samples of specific situations that players sent us through the "Suggestion" button. We were able to solve, generalize and build in all submitted cases pointing to the availability of a really better move. In particular G.B., K., and V.S. deserve our thanks for continuously checking the quality of our artificial intelligence.

1.5.1: clarified functions of multiplayer buttons 1.5: - Play with your friends over the Internet - Find other players in Game Center - Play clockwise (like in Switzerland) or counterclockwise (like in some other countries) - Adapted to the larger iPhone 5 screen - Bots' end game further improved We have again implemented the most popular suggestions, including those by J.A., A.B., G.B., F.E., A.K., M.K., A.P., N.P., O.R., C.S., H.T., M.V., and M.!

- Play with your friends over the Internet - Find other players in Game Center - Play clockwise (like in Switzerland) or counterclockwise (like in some other countries) - Adapted to the larger iPhone 5 screen - Bots' end game further improved We have again implemented the most popular suggestions, including those by J.A., A.B., G.B., F.E., A.K., M.K., A.P., N.P., O.R., C.S., H.T., M.V., and M.!