DaysOfWonder
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Ticket to Ride Pocket adds asynchronous multiplayer
The pocket version of Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder is among the best board game adaptations for the iPhone, and it's just gotten better with asynchronous multiplayer support. Now you can start a game with friends through Game Center, and take turns back and forth across the Internet. The experience is similar to popular multiplayer games like Words with Friends and Hero Academy. This free update also expands the game's local multiplayer mode, so that users on the same Bluetooth or Wi-Fi network can play across devices. Ticket to Ride for the iPhone and iPod touch is available for US$1.99 in the App Store, while the iPad version is priced at $6.99. Days of Wonder notes that Ticket to Ride has been extremely popular. It has sold over 350,000 copies, and a new online game is begun every four seconds on average. The game is definitely excellent, and the success is well-deserved.
Review: Gorgeous Small World app shows board games can be great on the iPad
Considering how good Small World (US$4.99) – the first big Euro board game of the iPad era – is, fans of these sorts of games are in for a really wonderful ride. While this app isn't perfect, we're here to tell you that it's well worth your time. Maybe you've seen Apple pushing this game in the App Store, with the motley crew pictured above staring out at you from the flash screen. Without a familiarity with the physical board game, though, it's kind of hard to know what to make of it. Here's what's going on: Underneath the pretty fantasy graphics, Small World is a clever area control game, an almost completely luck-free strategy game that gives players a lot of great in-game choices. Each turn, you have a small number of tokens representing one of about a dozen tribes (trolls, halflings, tritons, etc.) that all have a random bonus power (one of twenty) attached. You send these little minions out to take over some territory and score points based on where you are at the end of your turn. Spread yourself too thin and you won't have much to do next turn. Stay too bunched up and you won't score enough points to win. In short, the game is brilliant if you're looking for something a little more strategic than Risk and don't need a twitchy tapping experience to have fun. Read on to find out all just how big Small World can be. %Gallery-92357%
