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GameChanger board uses your iPad for board games
We stopped by Identity Games' booth here at CES in Las Vegas to see its GameChanger game board (which you can basically see above, albeit in a very cheery/creepy PR picture setting). Despite the less-than-intriguing marketing, the GameChanger is a really great idea. It's a 1'x3' board with an iPad dock in the very middle. With the help of a free app and some plastic cutouts, you can play physical board games, using your iPad for various digital functions. In one of the games, licensed from the Magic School Bus brand, each player takes turns "spinning" a digital wheel on the iPad by swiping with a finger. After spinning, each player needs to move their piece around the board. The iPad tells that player where his/her piece should land. When you reach certain spots on the board, the iPad will give players puzzles to solve or trivia questions to answer to move forward. There will be eight games total on the free app in April, with 12 available by the end of August. In addition to the board games that use plastic overlays, there are also "Action Games" that just use the base board, and allow players to shoot back and forth or get involved in more real-time competition. The whole contraption, though a little flimsy (the plastic covers just basically sit on the gameboard, and the whole thing is colored with a weird gray look), works very well. The board always knows where it's being interacted with, and the iPad does a great job of keeping games rolling along and mixing physical pieces with digital interactions. I don't think this is the best example we'll ever see of real life and digital interaction like this (in other words, it doesn't change the proverbial game quite so much), but it's one of the first, and it's done very well. GameChanger is available now for US$79.99. One more thing. Identity Games is also working on an iPhone version of the GameChanger, and while it's not anywhere near done just yet, they did kindly show us an artist's rendering of the prototype, which you can see below. As shown, it's probably designed for four players, and includes options for answering trivia questions with A, B, or C, as well as moving in four different directions. Looks very interesting indeed. The iPhone version is supposed to be out and available sometime around this August, so we'll look for it then.
Gamechanger iPad accessory combines docking with board games, we go hands-on (video)
Well, is it really a game changer? Depends how you use the term. But this GameChanger remains a clever way of combining the often mundane world of dock charging with a low-fi board game. The device is already out and those children of yours would normally be pestering for the charming sum of $80. However, there's a holiday discount to $50 that'll extend through the rest of January, with the promise of refreshed content delivered through the iPad app. Several games now use the vanilla touchmat underneath the cardboard game outlays and they're generally a bit more fast-paced than the board game offerings. The makers also intend to extend the gaming offering while they roll out the device in more languages and territories. Our hands-on video is en route, until then, feel free to peruse the gallery below. Zach Honig contributed to this report.
CPU Wars and c-Jump: the nerdiest card and board games ever
Board games and card games are kind of dorky to begin with. And there are plenty of titles out there that hold a special place in the heart of the nerd (just ask one about Settlers of Catan). But, there is a line, a line which even the nerdiest amongst us might not care to cross. For example, c-Jump -- a board game that teaches the basics of programming. Some of the spaces you'll land on in the course of your journey down the mountain include "goto jump;" and "switch (x) {". Then there's CPU Wars, for the three people out there that think Magic: The Gathering is too mainstream. In this card battle game you pit CPUs from throughout history against each other and attempt to collect all your adversary's processors. You can order c-Jump through ThinkGeek for $25 and pledge cash to CPU Wars over at Kickstarter. You'll find a video of the card game after the break.
GameChanger is a game-changing, iPad game board that lets you change games
All joking aside, GameChanger is actually pretty neat. It's a combination iPad dock and playing board that isn't limited to a single game. The Apple slate becomes an integral part of play, where you spin a virtual wheel to determine how many spots to move while the app tracks your progress. The board itself comes with different skins (two at the moment: The Magic School Bus and Animal Mania) that have their own particular set of animations, questions and tasks when you select the title from the free GameChanger app. There's no dice or cards to lose, but you might be wishing for bits of plastic and cardboard when a sore loser tosses your tablet across the room. GameChanger is available now for $80 and a few more details can be spied in the PR after the break.
Star Wars Operation lets you get to the bottom of the R2-D2 booster rocket debate
Let's face it kids, you weren't going to be a doctor. Time to give up on that dream. But what about the equally exciting and significantly less bloody world of droid repair? We all know that robots will soon have a major presence in our society, piloting our spaceships and mingling with our Wokiees (good luck getting into our cantinas, though), so it's probably best to get a jump on these job skills at an early age. With future job markets in mind (ones oddly similar to those experienced a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away), Hasbro is launching a new edition of the popular board game Operation, swapping out the red-nosed Cavity Sam for everyone's favorite rolling trashcan, R2-D2. The game can be pre-ordered now for $27, and it'll start shipping in September, so if you need an early-autumn kid birthday gift for under $30, this may be just the droid you're looking for.
App Review: Tikal offers jungle brilliance for 10 action points a turn
Every six months or so, Codito/Sage Board Games releases another excellent Euro-style board game for iOS. The first example was the excellent Medici, which was followed by Ra. Coming up next is Puerto Rico. Last week they brought us Tikal, a truly wonderful game that won the 1999 Spiel des Jahres award and still stands up to any of the releases coming out today (last year, it even got a sequel, which is just fascinating). While the game is amazing, the Tikal app feels like a 0.9 version, but the crashes and quirks should be worked out quickly if Sage's history tells us anything. Tikal the board game is about exploring the jungle around Tikal, the archaeological site, for ancient Mayan temples and treasures. It may be troubling if you think about it in terms of colonizer and indigenous peoples, but sometimes you need to just enjoy brilliant gameplay when you find it. Read on to see how it all works. %Gallery-122202%
Monopoly Live adds a nagging, money counting computer to the Hasbro classic
Once again, technology might have just sucked the fun out of a beloved (or at least tolerated) past-time. Hasbro's refresh of Monopoly -- Monopoly Live -- includes a ten-inch tower that sits in the center of the board, keeping an eye on it via IR technology. This bad boy rolls the dice, counts the money, and makes sure you don't nudge your thimble someplace it shouldn't be. Of course, the game's basics remain intact: domination of your friends and loved ones with skill and greed -- although we fail to see how kids are to properly learn about capitalism when they no longer have the ability to cheat. Coming soon for $50.
Macworld Expo 2011: Trouble Brothers' Sword of Fargoal 2 and other titles
Jeff McCord and Steve Shippert head up a Seattle-based company called Trouble Brothers, and while I visited their booth at Macworld to talk about iOS games, the two have quite a gaming history. They met while playing trivia games in Seattle, and they have worked on real-life board games in the past. They've also done some educational game titles and even a city-wide treasure hunt in their hometown. So these guys know gaming, and the games they've produced for iOS make that very clear. First up, I got to see Sword of Fargoal 2. Sword of Fargoal is one of the most popular RPG titles on the App Store -- it's a retro title that is based on an old roguelike game that's actually run by another company -- Fargoal, LLC -- of which McCord is a part. With his partners Elias Pshernig and Lead Designer Paul Pridham, McCord was showing the game at the same booth, even though it's not technically a Trouble Brothers title. Sword of Fargoal 2 keeps that basic idea, but updates the aesthetic quite a bit. In addition to new music and new dungeon types, there will also be new classes to play via in-app purchase (Thief, Magic user, Ranger and Fighter) as well as male and female versions of each. I also got to see some new animated openings for the game, and they look terrific.
App Review: Reiner Knizia's Ra
Reiner Knizia's classic Egyptian-themed auction and tile-collecting game Ra is not an easy one to figure out. When playing around a table, you need to collect the right tiles, look over to see what other people are collecting, keep an eye on the status of the sun/bid tiles and, in general, process a lot of changing information. If you enjoy this gameplay but don't like setting up the game or dealing with scorekeeping, the new universal Ra app is sure to please, especially at US$4.99 (it debuted at $6.99, but quickly came down). Ra for iOS was designed by Sage Board Games, the same people who brought us the excellent Medici and have a lot of wonderful board games in their "convert to app" sights. Because it's such a popular game in the Eurogame community, a lot of people have been waiting for Ra, and it kind of feels like this is an important app for the developers. If it's a success, then we expect more board game apps to come. If not, then what happens? We have no inside information on the company's finances or strategic plan, but it's probably not cheap to produce an app like this, and no one wants to lose money -- even if they're making things they love. Does Ra make the grade? We think so, but read on to see what its like to get a bit of desert auction sand in your iPad or iPhone. %Gallery-107267%
Settlers of Catan in development for Microsoft Surface, still can't help you trade sheep for wood (video)
It's a pretty well-known fact that The Settlers of Catan / Die Siedler von Catan is fantastic fun, and though the original board game has seen a few digital incarnations, all the cutthroat hexagonal colonization sim ever really needed was a giant screen with multitouch. MayFair Games let Vectorform build this version for Microsoft Surface, which is on display at the Origin Games Fair this week; CNET reports the final version will be available this August. Good luck finding enough resources to trade for the table to play it on. Video after the break, more details at our source links.
iPad apps: defining experiences from the first wave
There are now over 1,348 approved apps for the iPad. That's on top of the 150,000 iPad-compatible iPhone programs already available in the App Store. When Apple's tablet PC launches, just hours from now, it will have a software library greater than that of any handheld in history -- not counting the occasional UMPC. That said, the vast majority of even those 1,348 iPad apps are not original. They were designed for the iPhone, a device with a comparatively pokey processor and a tiny screen, and most have just been tweaked slightly, upped in price and given an "HD" suffix -- as if that somehow justified the increased cost. Besides, we've seen the amazing potential programs have on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and webOS when given access to a touchscreen, always-on data connection, GPS, cloud storage and WiFi -- but where are the apps that truly define iPad? What will take advantage of its extra headroom, new UI paradigms and multitouch real estate? Caught between netbook and smartphone, what does the iPad do that the iPhone cannot? After spending hours digging through the web and new iPad section of the App Store, we believe we have a number of reasonably compelling answers. Update: Now includes Wormhole Remote, TweetDeck, SkyGrid, Touchgrind HD, GoToMeeting, SplitBrowser, iDisplay, Geometry Wars and Drawing Pad.
Review: Viva il Re board game app asks to be crowned
The iPhone might be the most amazing computer you can slip into your jeans, but there are some things it just doesn't do very well. For example, you can't really get into a bluffing match against the machine, at least not with the iPhone/iPod touch app Viva il Re ($1.99). Here's what we mean. Viva il Re (which means "Long live the King" in Italian) is a well-designed board game by Stefano Luperto that has been beautifully ported to the iPhone by by Pro-netics S.p.A. The object is to score points and hopefully get one of your characters to become the new king, because the old king has decided to retire (can kings do that?). With the retirement announcement, "the pirouette for succession begins!" according to the official game setup. Each player is secretly hoping one of their six characters manages to reach the top, out of 13 total. When you play the board game version of Viva il Re, called King Me!, the reasonably slow pace of the game and the face-to-face interaction means that there is time to develop guesses about which characters each player is hoping will take the throne. While the app looks almost exactly like the tabletop version and most of the functionally is the same, it's just not as much fun to compete against bots as it is to outwit other people. Continue reading and see if you agree. %Gallery-86560%
Hexagonal interactive OLED gaming tiles likely to cost a bundle, would sure spice up our Wednesday nights
We've seen plenty of ways for board games to be revitalized with large touchscreens, but a new concept from the Human Media Lab at Queen's University in Ontario puts the screens and interactivity onto the gaming pieces themselves. The idea would be to use slim, networked touchscreen hexagonal tiles with edge-to-edge OLED displays. The proximity of the tiles to one another, along with gestures performed with the tiles, provides the interactivity, and the occasional branching touchscreen menu selection keeps play humming. Unfortunately, that enabling tech isn't all there yet (at least in university-affordable forms), but the video demo after the break is pretty convincing in its presentation of these ideas in a top-down-projection simulation. Certainly promising, but we're sure not expecting to see this sort of gaming priced within reach of your average Sorry! board anytime soon.
Joystiq interview: the EA/Hasbro game agreement
When it comes to the realm of board games, Hasbro is quite the ... player. Over the past couple of decades, it has absorbed Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, Avalon Hill, Wizards of the Coast, Cranium, and others. Chances are that any board game, not to mention toys, you used to play with as a kid are now owned by Hasbro. In 2007, Electronic Arts signed an exclusive agreement with Hasbro to produce games based on some of the items in its vaults, and so far we've seen Scrabble, Hasbro Family Game Night, Trivial Pursuit, and more. EA also just announced Hasbro Family Game Night 2 for the Wii and DS, due out later this fall, which will add Pictureka, Bop-It, Operation, Jenga and others to the mix. But where are the titles like Risk, Axis & Allies, and Dark Tower? We spoke to Steve Flege, Senior Marketing Director for Hasbro Digital and Kyle Murray, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Electronic Arts about the deal, the first games we've seen, the pricing structure, and what's coming up next. The good news: we might be getting Risk on next-gen consoles. It's been on the PC, the PS1, the PS2, and the original Xbox, so it's about time. Roll those sixes! %Gallery-42087%
Joystiq impressions: Ubisoft's RUSE
Randal Graves: I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am. Indecisive Video Customer: I beg your pardon? Randal Graves: Your ruse. Your cunning attempt to trick me.Clerks (1994)Ubisoft is betting against Kevin Smith and hoping that you will appreciate its cunning attempts to trick you with this real-time strategy game that feels like a board game on steroids. Ubi announced the game at GDC earlier this year, but besides the strange Euro-trailer and a few screenshots, there wasn't much to go on. Thankfully, the publisher has released the above gameplay video that shows off the new IRISZOOM engine that powers the game -- now you can see what the game's all about. RUSE has a very robust tabletop feel, and opens up to an impressive scale. Read on after the break to see just how the "ruses" work. %Gallery-48492%
You will not escape Dungeon Twister on XBLA
French board game Dungeon Twister will be joining the Xbox Live Arcade catalog of tabletop games gone digital, with Asmodée and Hydravision's announcement that the game's XBLA release will happen in Q3 2009.The best way to describe Dungeon Twister is as a mix of monsters, magic and strategy. It's a game where you escape a dungeon and, well ... that's basically what you do. It's probably best that you read up on the backstory and (twisted) rules for yourself (PDF). You'll also be pleased to know that there's a library of game expansions, so downloadable content should be plentiful.
TUAW Review: Scrabble for iPhone
Hasbro's Scrabble is a classic board game, and Electronic Arts made the crossword game one of the first releases for the iPhone / iPod touch platform. Although the game has been available since July, I decided to wait to review it until some of the early bugs were squashed and new features were added. Since Scrabble is a holiday favorite for families, it's the perfect time for a review of the game. The original board game is played with 100 small hardwood tiles, most of which have a letter of the alphabet and a point value printed on them. The playing board is a 15 by 15 grid with some squares marked as double or triple letters or words. The object, to those few people who have never played the game, is to create words from a rack of letters randomly assigned to you. Points are assigned per word based on the individual point values of the tiles and whether a letter or word overlays a colored multiplier square. After the first word has been placed on the board, subsequent words must touch another word in crossword puzzle fashion.
Zombies!!! board game to eat video game brains
It's time to get the shotgun out of the cupboard, as Twilight Creations announced plans to bring its popular tile-based board game, Zombies!!!, to Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network as well as Steam in 2009. The company describes these as the 'initial' platforms for the project, and we fully expect Zombies!!! to scuffle onto others should the creeping undead take hold. Interestingly, the game is being handled by Wisconsin-based Big Rooster, the same Big Rooster that recently had another tabletop-to-video game translation, Talisman, canned by would be publisher Capcom. Here's hoping that Zombies!!! doesn't suffer a similar fate, or at the very least if it does it can drag itself up from the grave. [Thanks, J]
According to Hoyle, it's 2009
Encore Software apparently has a time machine, and it's not the one built into Leopard. They have just introduced three new entries in their Hoyle series of Mac games -- Hoyle Puzzle & Board 2009, Hoyle Cards 2009, and Hoyle Casino 2009. Hoyle Puzzle & Board 2009 features puzzle games, including Sudoku, Anagrams, Hangman, Mahjongg, and over 1,200 crossword puzzles. The "Board" part of the game is actually Freeverse's Big Bang Board Games, which includes Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, and four more classic games. You can play against virtual or real opponents, and you gain Hoyle Bucks to purchase new music and backgrounds. Hoyle Cards 2009 has hundreds of card games, and you can now play online against other card sharks in the Royle (sic) Suite. Hoyle Casino gives you slots, roulette, and all of the other casino favorites, now with access to the Royle Suite and online tournaments.The games are available for $19.99 each and require Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later. Be sure to check out the system requirements before you buy, since some of the games require Intel processors, and then party like it's 2009!
E308: Dokapon Kingdom trailer is a delight
Atlus sure knows how to make a trailer exciting -- you can forget needing that cup of coffee after watching this.While our interest was only mildly piqued before by the adorable-looking boardgame-meets-RPG known as Dokapon Kingdom, this video really managed to put the title on our radar, nearing the "Do Want" list. As for destroying friendships? That's fine by us. We never really liked those people we called "friends" anyway. Atlus also promises an enriching single-person experience, too, in case you've already burned those briges long ago without developer Sting's help.Dokapon Kingdom should be hitting American shores on October 14th, retailing at $40. %Gallery-20121%
