TUAW's Daily iPad App: Cargo Runners
Trouble Brothers is a company run by developers Jeff McCord and Steve Shippert, and when I saw them back at Macworld earlier this year, they showed me a game they were working on called Cargo Runners, destined to be released on the iPad, along with an actual real-life board game version. It doesn't seem like the board game version has arrived yet, but the iPad version is out now and available for $4.99 on the App Store.
You can play the game a few different ways, including just pass-and-play local, online synchronous or asynchronous multiplayer, and there's a version with solo play against an AI coming soon. The basic idea, as I saw in February, is that each player runs a ship around the world, collecting and delivering cargo while contending with all sorts of issues, from weather to political scheming.
The game's fun, bright, and extremely well-designed, perfect for board game fans, or just anyone who likes a solid game in this style. The missing AI can be a problem (Game Center users are reporting that the matchmaking is lonely sometimes), but if you've got a group of people to play with, the experience is excellent. Board gamers, pick this one up right away, and everybody else bookmark it away for when that solo AI shows up.
