It’s an odd crossover, this: board games are as old as dammit, video games haven’t hit retirement age yet. But in terms of taste, the crossover is huge. I don’t know a video game designer who doesn’t love board games; indeed, it’s widely known that the elder statesmen of UK game development (including Ian Livingstone, Peter Molyneux, Steve Jackson) get together to play Caylus and other German board games. Perhaps it’s their elegance of mechanics, perhaps it’s the humanity of their mandatory multiplayer, but (if you’ll forgive my mangling of our language) board games tick all the boxes that make gamers tick.
What video games bring to board games is remote play, polish and value. A premium Fantasy Flight board game like might cost £100 where the iPad version will cost £10. Yes, that’s expensive compared to all the other iOS apps at £1, but - and you’ll get a lot out of this - what tablets bring is accessibility and a tactile UI. You don’t have to spend hours learning the rules and setting up the board - it’s done for you in the blink of an eye.
Because the iPad App Store is brimming with them, we’ve picked out ten of the best boardgame conversions to showcase here. Many on the store, however, appear to be unofficial versions - for example, the superb free iPad version of Dominion - so we’ve restricted ourselves just to the official, polished games until we can know more.
10. Catan
The grandaddy of iOS games, and indeed of board games, Catan’s accessible mechanics make it easy to learn and hard to master. A simple random resource allocation mechanic is complicated by a trading system that rewards co-operation and restrains early leaders. (In simple language: it’s fair). Victory is as simple: all you have to do is build the most cities / towns, with a few extra conditions that might lead to a win. The iOS version has a solid tutorial, local multiplayer, good AI, the Seafarers expansion (which adds a campaign and new rules), great customisation options (even allowing for the almost total removal of randomness), stat-tracking and several challenge maps.
9. Carcassone
Another family favourite (if your family is into German board games), Carcassone is easy to play but hard to understand. Players co-operate to build a river valley together, claiming the land as they do so. Whereas Catan is easy to play, Carcassone’s scoring system and speed is hugely improved by the move to tablet; the game adds up all the points so you don’t have to, making the end-game much simpler. It also has superbly implemented multiplayer, good AI, a superb single-player Solitaire puzzle mode, two cheap expansions, and a great tutorial.
8. Puerto Rico
I’ve played Puerto Rico over and over. I understand the game back to front. And I still can’t beat the easiest AI. Puerto Rico is THE toughest of the German games to play and is a real challenge for those RTS players out there. It’s an agricultural game, like Agricola, but players must also ship the goods they make. It’s hard balance to strike between infrastructure, farming and shipping, and one other thing I don’t quite get. It features game centre match-making, a solid tutorial, super-tough AI and basic stat tracking.
7. Tigris and Euphrates
Reiner Knizia is the grandaddy of German board game designers, prolific and with a distinct, mathematical style. I personally can’t stand his games, but lots of people love things like Tigris & Euphrates. Ostensibly, it’s a kingdom-building game, but more honestly, it’s a tile game, where you build and steal networks off each other. The iPad version, though not as beautiful as the Days of Wonder games, is slick and quick to play, with solid AI. It also supports local and online multiplayer, and tracks your stats.
Away from the rural idyll of the normal German games and the blood n’ guts of the Ameritrash, Ticket to Ride is a classic connectivity game. Players build railway lines across America (expansions include Europe and... Switzerland, bizarrely), with plaudits going to those with the greatest length and number of routes completed. It’s an extremely slick app, probably the easiest to learn here, and it’s beautiful to behold, down to every icon having a perfect Victoriana style. It includes online multiplayer through Game Center.
5. Small World
The word ‘Ameritrash’ is a way of saying a game has a strong theme (often fantasy), player combat and a dollop of luck. Small World is pure Ameritrash; you take control of successive fantasy races, trying to conquer as much of a small continent as they can before their inevitable decline, when you pick a new race. It’s fun, cruel and fast, with combat. It’s a pity the iPad version is only two player and pass-and-play, and the AI isn’t top-notch, but the superb design sure makes up for it. It has two minor expansions, which bequeath new races and rules.
4. Ghost Stories
Ghost Stories is singular in several ways: it’s set in ancient China; players are attempting to defend a village against ghosts; it’s purely co-operative; and it has some of the strangest layouts and mechanics I’ve encountered. If you’ve got a bunch of brainbox friends for the local multiplayer, great. If not, it will let you play as 1-4 players by yourself, on any of four difficulties, and the enemy variety makes it slow to get bored - but there are no expansions if you do. Again, it’s tough and will punish novice players quickly.
3. Ascension
Created by three pro tour Magic the Gathering players, Ascension I, of course, a card-game, with players building their decks in-game to decimate a range of NPC baddies and gain victory points. Given its heritage, it’s extremely brash, with garish card art like Warhammer Fantasy and a convoluted interface style. It’s also extremely quick and players can build very different decks to take advantage of the game’s asymettries. The online mode integrates with Game Center and lets players play extremely quick games or extremely slow ones, with turn limits ranging from 10 minutes to 14 days.
2. Neuroshima Hex
An Ameritrash game that works much better on the iPad than it did as a tabletop game, Neuroshima Hex is a post-apocalyptic hex-based wargame in a very confined space. Four factions (mutant, military, robot and gangsters) with unique units battle to destroy each other’s HQ. Tense, strategic and high-energy, no two battles go the same way. Two expansions each introduce a new faction and tileset. It has four-player local multiplayer but, despite Game Center integration, no online multiplayer.
1. Caylus
The last of the big-name German games, Caylus casts you as builders seeking to impress a lord by building as much of his castle as possible, whilst also enriching yourself and building a town around the castle. Though players are limited in their actions (you can only do things that no other player has already done), the complex board expands through player action, so that choice expands as the game progresses. The game supports five players, either locally or online. Though the online mode is robust, it seems to have less online players than the other games - we hope that this article changes that!
There are plenty other titles out there we’ve not covered, though. Some worthy of consideration are: Dominion, Titan, Hive, Medici, Bang!, Elder Sign: Omens, Timeline, Ra, Tikal, Cyclades, Reiner Knizia’s Samurai, Scrabble, Forbidden Island. Let us know your favourite iPad board games in the comments below.
Source : ign[dot]com
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