Mobile Board Games

The morons who had the TTA license let it lapse in December, and just recently let the rest of the world know that. Some other studio is doing it now, and that's probably a good thing in the long run.

Every time I see an announcement from Sirlin all I can think of is the big old bald guy in Reservoir Dogs shouting, "MY WAY, OR THE HIGHWAY!" He's such a solipsistic developer I'm surprised he's not making honest-to-God videogames.

I somehow missed this news when Brad dropped it earlier this week. This is nuts. Last I heard, TTA was very nearly done. They were toward the end of beta. Then they decided to refocus on Ra multiplayer and now they're just scrapping all the work they did on it? What the hell?

Though the good news appears to be that whoever Vlaada and CGE are working with now might be doing more than just TTA. I wouldn't mind playing either of his Dungeon games on my iPad. I can't imagine that Galaxy Trucker would convert well, though.

Mage Knight would make a great video game. It's tough to play as a board game right now because of how much fiddling about you have to do each turn, even though the game is fantastic.

I don't think Mage Knight would be included in any deals since WizKids owns the IP, not CGE.

Oh yeah....

There is that Mage Knight app that takes some of the pain out of game management. Presumably. I haven't actually played yet.

Still playing my first game of Fluxx. We've shuffled the deck three times.

$.99 was too much to pay.

Why are you doing this to yourself?

Is it time to report?

Or should we wait?

Hmm...

Haggis is 99c today.

They still haven't released a meaningful update for this stinker. Though for a buck I suggest getting it just to learn how to play, then getting the real game and some friends together to see what it's like to play against opponents who put up a fight.

Yeah it definitely seems like something I could get a dollar's worth out of even if it doesn't get smarter in the future.

You mean the dummy player app?


Holy shit, there's a Space Alert Mission Generator for android! And an Agricola Buddy. Cool stuff.

Yeah. I guess it's only useful for solitaire play, which means I should have tried it out by now.

Caylus is currently on sale for $2.99 (down from $4.99) matching its lowest sale price. Is it worth it for SP and or MP?

I'm not a huge Caylus fan. I'm waiting for it to hit $.99

It has already gone back up so any fence riders are Outta Luck! Which I was as well.

Get back up on the fence, 'cause it's down to $2.99, again!

I know we've talked about Androminion before, but they've done various upgrades to it, and on a big tablet, it now shows the full text of every card, which makes it a lot better if you haven't memorized every card in all the sets. (You can configure it to do that on phones or small tablets, too, but the screen is really just too small for it, and I don't like it that way.)

It's not the prettiest game -- though it's less ugly than it used to be -- but I'd be shocked if the official version (which: wasn't that supposed to be released a long time ago?) played anywhere near as well.

On one hand, it will allow Android, iOS and PC players to play Dominion against one another.

On the other hand, single-player will require an internet connection.

On a third hand, Goko's handling of the whole thing has been an unmitigated disaster from beginning to end, so fuck those guys.

Just so it's clear, mkozlows is referring to an Android-only single-player Dominion game that was supposed to be withdrawn back when Goku made their official release. Instead, it's still available, still under development, oh and hey look now it's open source!

Did Goku actually release their version, though? Searching Google Play for Dominion doesn't turn anything up except card pickers 'n' stuff.

Just so it's clear, I was replying to this.

And.

Keep waiting. Considering what a disaster the PC version has been, I doubt we'll ever see their version.

A game known as Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy has been released for iOS iPad. Perhaps you've heard of the board game version? :-)

Check out Brad's review.

Also, the developer has stated it runs on 1st generation iPads, but advises that background apps be closed while playing it.

Sales:

The Kingpin ($1.99 -> Free)
Neuroshima Hex ($4.99 -> $2.99)
Caylus ($4.99 -> $2.99)

I played about a half of a game of Eclipse and realized that me and everyone I know is apparently terrible at Eclipse because the normal AI would kill us all with ease. Thanks a lot, iPad.

I got Tigris and Euphrates for droid and I really like it. I'd never played the game before, and I think that is a mistake. I typically don't like Euros as much as Ameritrash, but the theme in T&E seems useful, in a way. Like how it does in Ra, somehow. It's a leap, really, as they're both abstract, but I at least feel like I'm trying to build a civilization. In Agricola, for example, I feel like I'm playing a game called Agricola.

Yeah I'm actually starting to get a bit frustrated. They really REALLY did not balance this appropriately for relative beginners. The idea of an "easy" difficulty is that it should be EASY. Not painful.

Grr. I'm going to go rate this down out of spite.

Agricola submitted to Apple. First time for Playtek on a complicated non-card game. Here's hoping its good.

Fantasy Flight Games released an update today for Elder Sign: Omens for all three platforms:

- Free Ancient One! (Hastur)
- The Dark Pharaoh campaign (in-app purchase)
- Reorganized Main Menu
- Bug fixes & optimizations

What's the best part? Here's what's included in The Dark Pharaoh campaign for $2.99:

- New Ancient One [naturally]
- Over 65 New Adventures [that's a lot!]
- Lingering Effects and Allies [Allies, finally!]
- 8 New Monsters [always welcome!]
- 4 New Investigators [gimme, gimme!]
- Unlockable Bonus Investigator [make me earn it, love it!]

Allies!!! Woo hoo!!!

Maybe it is (long past) time for me to get Elder Sign. :)

Tyjenks, it's Yahtzee. If you love Yahtzee, great! It has a neat theme now.

If you don't... well, don't get it.

For me, it and D-Day Dice are just poorly conceived dice games that rely too much on luck.

That's an inaccurate assessment I can't let slide. The one thing they share in common is they both have the player rolling and re-rolling six-sided dice, and then using them to form combinations. Aside from that, there are many more strategic decisions made in ES than in Yahtzee.

In Yathzee, you always roll five d6's, decide three times which of those to re-roll (without having to discard any), and then choose one combination to complete, combinations that are the same in every game. That's it.

In ES, you're always allowed to roll initially six green dice (assuming none are locked), one yellow die (via Item cards; assuming not locked), and one red die (via Item cards; assuming not locked). All dies have six faces, yet the faces on the green die differ from the faces on the yellow, and each differ from the faces on the red die. In most circumstances, the red is better than the yellow die, which is better than the green die.

Also, unlike Yahtzee, the "scoring" combinations are randomly determined each game via six Adventure cards (and Other World cards that may enter play after the game has started) drawn from a deck of 48 in the base game. Each Adventure card contains a number of Tasks (these are the game's dice combinations) that must be completed in order or not in order (depending on the Adventure card) to complete the adventure. Failure to roll a combination that completes a Task is a failure, and penalizes the player by forcing him to discard a die before rolling again. Failure to complete the Adventure card further penalizes the player, while success rewards him. Re-rolls are only allowed via Allies, Items, Spells, etc. Once an Adventure card is completed, it's replaced by a new one with different combinations, thereby once again changing the combinations available to the players.

All this, and I haven't even mentioned the goal of the game, which is to prevent the randomly determined Ancient One from awakening; the Monsters, which will alter or add additional combinations to an Adventure card; the unique Investigators; the Mythos effects; and more. Plus, it's a cooperative game, which Yahtzee isn't. I'd say ES is a lot more than Yahtzee with a theme.

Ticket to Ride out on Android now, apparently for high-res phones and tablets (it wants at least 1024x600). I've played the old XBLA version and liked it, but not sure how similar this is.

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a dice game inherently relies upon luck. "dice games that rely too much on luck" is like saying soccer relies too much on kicking the ball.

It's got to mean something that an FFG basher with a very low frustration tolerance thinks ES:O is sensational.

Go play D-Day Dice and you'll likely want to turn it into a soccer ball.

I can't stand Elder Sign: Omens or D-Day Dice (obviously), but for different reasons. ES:O I hate because the gameplay is so shallow and divorced from its theme (at least to me. I know I'm in the minority in this regard, but when I find a cool spell or item or whatnot and it's always represented by the same dumb die I tend to lose interest quickly). D-Day Dice I hate because it really is too random, and because it is divorced from its theme. Play it sometime if you haven't. It will certainly make you retract that soccer comparison.

I love dice games, but only when the dice are used to do incredibly interesting things. Like in Yspahan, or Castles of Burgundy, or Macao, or Kingsburg, or Alien Frontiers, or Liar's Dice, or Can't Stop, or Tumblin' Dice, or Roma/Roma II. Or when they improve dramatically on Yahtzee while using a similar mechanism, like Dragon Rampage, or King Of Tokyo, or the sublimely stripped-down Dice Of The Living Dead (which finally got the graphics overhaul it deserves. SWEET!). D-Day Dice takes everything bad about Yahtzee and makes it worse. It cranks up the luck factor, throws in at least three world wars worth of fiddly cards, gives you no sense of your skill having anything to do with any outcome, and forces you to play extremely tactically 98% of the time. I regret buying it, and regret more that I didn't sell it when it was worth something.

I haven't played D-Day Dice, nor am I likely to after that generous pasting. ;) I'm puzzled why it was all the rage during the Kickstarter and then sank like a stone. Well, if not sank, I certainly don't hear of anyone playing it.

I haven't played many of the games you listed, but I was not overwhelmed by Kingsburg, Alien Frontiers, Can't Stop, or KoT, at least their boardgame incarnations, where I have only played the iOS Elder Sign: Omens, so that may have something to do with it. We'll have to just disagree that ES:O gameplay "is shallow and divorced from its theme." It's my favorite Lovecraft game incarnation.

ES:O is some poop.

Anyway, Rivals for Catan (the Catan 2 player pretty-much-solitaire-with-some-trading game) is due out on the 20th.

Survive: Escape from Atlantis came out a few days ago with no fanfare.

And the fact that Agricola isn't out despite having been submitted on May 10th is a bad sign, right? Turns out there was a problem. Playdek briefly confirmed on Facebook that the app was rejected, but then deleted the comment and have since been mum.

Between their shit support of Summoner Wars and Nightfall, buggy release of Can't Stop, AEG's pulling of the Smash Up license and their decision to actually put out Fluxx, I'm beginning to think that Ascension was a case of a blind squirrel finding a nut.

Oh noes! Now you're "pushing buttons!" Yelp!

Cross-posting from the iOS thread, but Eclipse is on sale.