Surround - Online Go client

Name: Surround - Online Go client
Rating: 4.6 (44 reviews)
Author: Hong Anh Khoa

A modern app to play Go online

Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad

44 Ratings
Ages

4+
Years
Category

Board
Developer

Hong Anh Khoa
Language

EN
+ 3 More
Size

20.3
MB

Surround is a client to play Go online with other players on the website online-go.com (Online Go Server - OGS). OGS is a very popular Go Server with a friendly community, and this app aims to provide the best OGS experience on iPhones and iPads. Features: - Play Go with other Go players on OGS, either live games or turn-based (correspondence) games. - Observe other live games that are currently being played. - Chat with other players. - Get a glimpse of your correspondence games on your home screen with a widget. - Receive notifications when it is your turn in correspondence games. - Beautiful dark mode. There are many more features on OGS website that I plan to implement into the app gradually, so I hope to have your support to make it happen faster. Let me know if there is any feature you specifically want to have first. This app offers subscriptions for supporting the app's ongoing development. If you decide to participate in the subscriptions: - Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at the confirmation of purchase. - The subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. - Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. - You can manage and cancel your subscriptions by going to your account settings on the App Store after purchase. - All purchases are final. I cannot issue refunds for purchases charged to your Apple ID. The Terms of Use can be found at: https://files.honganhkhoa.com/SurroundTerms.html, and the Privacy Policy can be found at: https://files.honganhkhoa.com/SurroundPrivacyPolicy.html.

Ratings & Reviews

4.6

out of 5

44 Ratings

Hidden gem of a Go (Igo, weiqi, baduk) app
05/14/2024

paperscenery
I found this app completely by accident (never came up in search, which is the curse of all Go related things) and it has turned out to be all but perfect. If you play on OGS (or want to but you’re turned off by the interface) this is all you need. It’s an actual free fully featured OGS client, with the only upsell being a tiny subscription fee if you want push notifications for your games. There is currently a very small bug in the chat feature but after emailing the developer Khoa, they responded promptly to let me know it has been fixed in the next release and shared a TestFlight link to download the improved dev version. They are clearly in it for the love and not for the money, so if this review is corny, it’s only because I feel likes this kind of work deserves some love in return.
Hidden gem of a Go (Igo, weiqi, baduk) app
05/14/2024

paperscenery

I found this app completely by accident (never came up in search, which is the curse of all Go related things) and it has turned out to be all but perfect. If you play on OGS (or want to but you’re turned off by the interface) this is all you need. It’s an actual free fully featured OGS client, with the only upsell being a tiny subscription fee if you want push notifications for your games. There is currently a very small bug in the chat feature but after emailing the developer Khoa, they responded promptly to let me know it has been fixed in the next release and shared a TestFlight link to download the improved dev version. They are clearly in it for the love and not for the money, so if this review is corny, it’s only because I feel likes this kind of work deserves some love in return.
Awesome Go client
04/09/2021

Artursap
I’ve been using this app for a few weeks. I originally found its Testflight link on OFS Forums. It functions perfectly well and I’ve started playing a lot of correspondence games because of it. I love the haptics, push updates, and simplicity of the UI. The dev did really nice work here.Would be cool to get board style preferences eventually!
Awesome Go client
04/09/2021

Artursap

I’ve been using this app for a few weeks. I originally found its Testflight link on OFS Forums. It functions perfectly well and I’ve started playing a lot of correspondence games because of it. I love the haptics, push updates, and simplicity of the UI. The dev did really nice work here.Would be cool to get board style preferences eventually!
Great app with one frustrating bug
Oct 19

iPhone_3GS_was_best
The frustrating bug is the app gets frequently gets stuck in the “Reconnecting” state which requires a force quit and relaunch. It is especially annoying when I am locked-in to a game, decide on my move, but cannot submit my move because “Reconnecting”.This bug is a shame because otherwise this app is amazing! Great choices on what to include in the interface versus not.I am a paid subscriber and will continue to be, but hope the “Reconnecting” bug is fixed someday.
Great app with one frustrating bug
Oct 19

iPhone_3GS_was_best

The frustrating bug is the app gets frequently gets stuck in the “Reconnecting” state which requires a force quit and relaunch. It is especially annoying when I am locked-in to a game, decide on my move, but cannot submit my move because “Reconnecting”.This bug is a shame because otherwise this app is amazing! Great choices on what to include in the interface versus not.I am a paid subscriber and will continue to be, but hope the “Reconnecting” bug is fixed someday.
Great app, but broken
Jan 13

blindgorgon
This app is fantastic. It’s what OGS has needed for a long time. Drawback is that push notifications cost extra (pretty much THE feature if you play correspondence). This is really a shortcoming of OGS though as they don’t actually offer a push service. This forces the Surround dev to poll the server and roll their own notification server so they have to offset their costs.The real problem is that the app doesn’t load properly. Every time I open the app it’s stuck in the “loading” state. You can bypass it with a full restart of the app, but it’s a pain and feels unfinished. I contacted the dev about it and basically got “yeah I know it does that but I’m not going to take the time to fix it.” Seems like kind of lazy support for an app that’s darn near perfect.I want to give this 5 stars, but not until I see a fix. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯In any case, thanks for the good app!
Great app, but broken
Jan 13

blindgorgon

This app is fantastic. It’s what OGS has needed for a long time. Drawback is that push notifications cost extra (pretty much THE feature if you play correspondence). This is really a shortcoming of OGS though as they don’t actually offer a push service. This forces the Surround dev to poll the server and roll their own notification server so they have to offset their costs.The real problem is that the app doesn’t load properly. Every time I open the app it’s stuck in the “loading” state. You can bypass it with a full restart of the app, but it’s a pain and feels unfinished. I contacted the dev about it and basically got “yeah I know it does that but I’m not going to take the time to fix it.” Seems like kind of lazy support for an app that’s darn near perfect.I want to give this 5 stars, but not until I see a fix. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯In any case, thanks for the good app!