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Daily iPhone App: Las Vegas! brings Ravensburger's dice game to the iPad
Las Vegas! is a popular dice game that Ravensburger put together last year. It's not exactly the most complicated board game on the block (you roll dice, and then can place them into certain numbered slots that represent stakes in money-making casinos), but it's fun for families especially, and provides a nice relatively casual mix of luck and skill. Perhaps because the game is so approachable, the German company Ravensburger has elected to bring an iOS version out to iPhone and iPad, and you can now pick it up on the App Store for US$2.99. Just like the real-world game, the iOS version is fun but simple -- you select your players (or you can play online via Game Center), you roll the dice and then you try to lay them out in casinos wherever you think they'll earn you the most money. Play goes on like this for four rounds, at which point the player with the most money wins. There's also a more complicated variant where you get a number of neutral dice that you can use to block other players, and Ravensburger has smartly included that option here, which provides some extra replayability, especially for gamers seeking some more challenging strategy. The game's well-presented (I did have one small bug when starting a game, but a quick reset of the app fixed it anyway), with plenty of Vegas-style sounds and some nice casino architecture. There's also the ability to earn money from game-to-game, though I'm not sure what that's used for just yet -- maybe Ravensburger plans to put in more themes and casinos as time goes on. Currently, there are no in-app purchases at all, and I appreciate that. What you see for your $2.99 is what you get, and the game that's there is worth the price if you're interested.
Daily iPad App: Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy is a great board game adaptation
Eclipse is one of the most popular board games around right now -- it's a vast, involving epic "4X" game, where those four Xs stand for eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation (as in mining crops and resources from various planets) and eXtermination (as in finishing off your alien opponents). It was recently announced that Big Daddy's Creations would be adapting the game for iPad, and the iOS version has now arrived on the App Store, available for US$6.99. As a board game, I think Eclipse is terrific -- it's very well-balanced, and all of the various things you can do offer plenty of different strategies to play with. There are three resources (money, science and material) that you can use to exert your influence on various areas of a galaxy, research new technologies for starships or your empire or build up those ships and other various structures to combat your enemies. The game's almost endlessly flexible, in that you can try to win over the game's nine turns in any number of ways. The drawback here, however, is that all of that flexibility and complexity make the game, well, complicated. This is not a casual game by any means, and while the iOS version's interface is fairly good at converting all of the information you need into a visible, touchable form, it's not very good at actually explaining what all of that information is. So when you're confronted by 30-50 icons on screen at the same time and asked to choose one, the game can be overwhelming to say the least. Still, if you like great board games and are up for a challenge, Eclipse is excellent. And if you're already familiar with the board game, then this might end up becoming one of your favorite games on the App Store. My only other complaint is that there's no real "metagame" to it -- winning or losing the various games you play doesn't matter much in the larger picture at all. Still, Eclipse is an incredible adaptation of a brilliant board game, and it comes highly recommended. Even at the price of $6.99, it's one of the best board game apps out there.
Graeme Devine takes off with Rocket Patrol
Graeme Devine is a veteran game developer (he created The 7th Guest and then worked on Quake 3 and Halo Wars) who's turned his attention to iOS recently, putting together touch-based games meant for gamers of all ages. His latest title, which I got to see at GDC 2013 last week, is a board/card game called Rocket Patrol that runs on Apple's touchscreens. The game involves two players (you can play against the computer or asynchronously online), and has you running a rocket ship across the galaxy, trying to complete your journey before your opponent does. During each turn of the game, you get access to a hand of cards that you can play one from. Distance cards are how you win the game: Each player has a little chart of cards with various distances on them that you need to fill up, so you need to play eight cards of five light years, four of 15 and so on. As you play those cards, the chart fills up, and the first person to fill up their chart sends a rocket all the way across the screen and wins the game. Just racing would be a bit too simple, so Rocket Patrol also has red and green cards of various types. Red cards attack the other player (perhaps by sending them through a warp hole or causing some engine trouble), and then they need to play a green card to fix whatever problem you've given them. Certain green cards match up with certain red cards, so if there's a problem card on your ship, you need exactly the right green card to fix it. That's how the game goes back and forth, with the two players trying to play distance cards in between attacking each other and solving problems they've been attacked with. Devine says he got the idea for a game from an old 1906 automobile board game called Touring, but of course he's translated it to a journey across the stars. Rocket Patrol seems like some good clean fun -- and it's due out sometime this month. It'll be free to play, with some freemium elements in there for in-app purchase. Devine is also working on his very popular Full Deck Solitaire game -- he says the title "by and large is our number one platform," and that the game has reached a whopping 750,000 daily active users so far (with about four million downloads total). He's working on an Android version, thinking about bringing the game to Kindle Fire, and says players have asked for a PC version as well. Devine originally built that game just for his own family to play, so it's fascinating to hear that it's grown so big since its release a while ago.
GDC 2013: Space Hulk lurches towards release
Since I'm a huge Warhammer 40k fan, I was very excited to hear that a company named Full Control is planning to port the old Space Hulk board game to iOS, and I was even more excited to find the game up and running on the floor of GDC last week in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Full Control's game has quite a bit of development yet to go. It's definitely working, and the team is moving towards an iOS-playable version of the famous Warhammer board game. But the animations and the balance both need a lot of work yet before the title is set to arrive this fall. If you've never played Space Hulk, it's essentially a very condensed, close-quarters battle simulation set in the Warhammer 40k universe. You play as a crew of Space Marines (big, hulking soldiers equipped with heavy armor) aboard a giant ship, with monstrous creatures called genestealers in between you and certain objectives. Turn by turn, you move your Space Marines tactically down crowded corridors, trying to break through the genestealer lines in a series of scenarios. I saw the game played on a PC, though Full Control says it's hoping to release on PC, Mac and iPad all at the same time, and it's even trying to get an iPhone version done, though the game's controls aren't really viable at the moment for a screen that small. It definitely looked cramped and dingy, which is what you want in a game like this, though lots of the graphical elements weren't done, including the animation of the Space Marines moving around. The team may have a bit of an issue getting the graphics running on the iPad, too: Full Control's rep said a lot of the dynamic lighting might have to be removed to run the game on the tablet. The other major issue with Space Hulk right now is that the game is hard. Really hard. Obviously, a tactical board game shouldn't be a walk in the park, but even in the short demo I saw, the developer got rushed by genestealers very quickly, and only by luck was able to take one or two of them down. His whole party was soon overwhelmed as the Space Marines moved across the grid-based board trying to shore up the lines, and we lost on the very first level. Obviously, the game is a long way out from release, and the team has plenty of time to streamline the title down a bit to make sure that new players can at least figure things out. But Space Hulk looks like a relatively faithful version of the old board game, and Warhammer 40k enthusiasts will undoubtedly be happy to hear the Marines call each other "brother" and stomp around the dark spaceship's hallways. We'll look for a more refined version of the title later on this year.
Scrabble board packs RFID technology, broadcasts tournaments online in real-time, costs 20,000 pounds
Used to be, the Scrabble app was the techiest way to play the venerable vocabulary game, but the folks at Mind Sports have given the analog version some serious geek cred. In preparation for the Prague Mind Sports Festival, the organizers spent £20,000 building a Scrabble board with integrated RGB controlled LED lighting, nine embedded circuit boards and 225 RFID antennas (one per square). Plus, special game pieces were crafted containing RFID tags. Why? Well, the wireless tech combined with some purpose-built software lets tournament organizers broadcast games online in real-time -- the system reads the board in a mere 974 miliseconds. Those wishing to see the ultimate Scrabble system in action can do so when the tournament starts on December 1st, and there's more info in the PR after the break.
Daily iPhone App: Summoner Wars is a complicated mix of virtual board and card game
I took a trip down to Tampa Bay, Fla., for my sister's wedding last week, and before I headed for the airport, I loaded up my iPhone and iPad with a few new apps to check out on the way. Honestly, Fieldrunners 2 HD ended up taking most of my gaming time, but Summoner Wars was a very impressive choice as well. Summoner Wars is a complicated, intriguing game that combines tactical strategy, good old fashioned dice rolling and even some deckbuilding card game elements. You're fighting on a board pushing around cards as units. With each turn, you can either use your cards (as spells or actual heroes) in the battle, or save them as mana to summon more units on your next turn. There are plenty of deep strategical choices here that fans of complicated board games will find satisfying. Unfortunately, all of that complexity makes the game tricky to pick up. There is a tutorial, but even it only explains the mechanics of the game, and leaves you to figure out strategies completely on your own. But I appreciated that, especially on a long plane ride where I needed plenty of distraction from the crying baby behind me and the talkative gent across the aisle to my left. Summoner Wars is completely free-to-play, too, so if you want to check it out, you've got no excuses not to. If you like it, you can unlock everything in the game for US$7.99, or pick up individual card decks or card packs individually.
Daily iPhone App: Lost Cities is a great port of a popular card game
Lost Cities is one of Reiner Knizia's award-winning board games that recently made its way over to iOS, and I think it's great. The game is simple and easy to play, but it shows off quite a bit of complexity among just a few elements. The biggest complaints I have are that the tutorial can be confusing and there's no iPad version yet, unfortunately. But Lost Cities is an excellent strategy title good for quite a few matches of play. The core game here is a card game. You deal cards of various colors and numbers out of a stack, and then place those cards in certain colored lanes or in a discard pile. Playing cards in lanes gets you points. Each lane starts at negative 20 points, so the player needs to try and put as many cards in a certain lane to make their score positive and higher than the other player. The trick, however, is that you can only put cards in lanes in ascending order. Placing down a card worth the max of 10 points will earn you those 10 points, but it will also block off adding any other cards to that lane. Presentation is excellent: the graphics are clear, there's an excellent soundtrack and a variety of AI players to face off against. The Coding Monkeys, who also made the excellent version of Carcassone for iOS, have added "goals" to earn as you play, which offer extra incentive for replay value. Lost Cities is available for $3.99. It's a little steep as these games go, but if you like well-designed card and board games, it's worth skipping that cup of coffee to buy.
Researcher details method for teaching computers to win at board games through short training videos
All right, hotshot -- sure, you can trounce your five-year-old niece in a round of Connect Four, but are you ready to do battle with a machine? Łukasz Kaiser of Paris Diderot University in France has detailed a method for teaching computers how to learn relatively simple games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Breakthrough and the aforementioned eternal vertical struggle between checker pieces, using quick videos generally under two minutes in length. "The presented algorithm requires only a few demonstrations and minimal background knowledge," Kaiser explains, in his paper Learning Games from Videos Guided by Descriptive Complexity, "and, having learned the rules, automatically derives position evaluation functions and can play the learned games competitively." Kaiser adds, having taken on the world of Tic-Tac-Toe and other relatively simple games that, "there is strong theoretical evidence that it will generalize to other problems." Now if only we can sum up the world's issues Connect Four-style, we should be covered.
DICE+ wants to team with screens and usher in an era of powered board games (hands-on)
We learned about DICE+, the digital chance cube, just before E3, and today we finally got to give it a few rolls and find out a bit more about DICE+ from the folks who made it. It's an inch-sized cube with a soft-touch rubbery finish that's packed with a Bluetooth radio and a rechargeable battery. For now, it juiced up via microUSB, but an induction charging version is also in the works. Its power cell grants up to 20 hours of continuous rolling, or a little over a week for non-gambling degenerates. Speaking of, the cube's maker, GIC, said a major point of emphasis in the cube's design was getting the balance of the thing just right to ensure the randomness of DICE + results -- and it's even spoken with casino companies about their tolerance requirements in that area. While DICE + may find its way onto craps tables eventually, for now, its maker's focused on what it calls "powered board games."%Gallery-157624% You see, while we're all familiar with board game mechanics -- roll a die/spin a wheel and move your game piece accordingly -- they don't translate well to the digital realm. People don't trust a computer to give truly random results, and tapping a screen to "roll" dice gets boring quickly. That's the beauty of DICE+, players get all the advantages of a digital board game, like animations and greater interactivity, without the aforementioned downside because it engages them in a satisfying, familiar fashion. Join us after the break for our impressions, and a bit more info about this throwback gadget.
Ticket to Ride coming to the Mac
The railroading-themed board game Ticket to Ride has made a successful transition to iOS, and it's now it will shortly be available on the Mac through the Mac App Store. The game launches April 5. The Mac release of the game allows you to compete with opponents on the Mac, PC, Linux and iPad versions. There's solo and online game play on the classic US map and in-app purchases to obtain maps for the US in 1910, Europe and Switzerland. More than 800,000 copies of the iOS versions of Ticket to Ride have been sold, and we look forward to seeing how it'll do on the Mac. The Mac version of Ticket to Ride is $9.99. Ticket to Ride for the iPhone is $1.99 and the iPad version is $6.99.
zAPPed board games hands-on
Alright, zAPPed is no GameChanger but, where Hasbro's line of iOS-integrated board games falls short in the pun department, it shines in cleverness. The Game of Life launched just a couple of days ago with a special edition designed to be used with an iPad app, while other classics Battleship and Monopoly are scheduled to follow later in the year. All make your iDevice an integral part of the gaming experience and leverage an ingeniously simple solution to boosting the interactivity. Underneath the game pieces are uniquely arranged capacitive plastic pads that allow the apps to identify what you're holding. Different boats in Battleship have slightly different arrangements of pads underneath that allow the app to tell whether your carrier or destroyer has been sunk.Monopoly uses the same trick to differentiate player debit cards. When it comes time to make a transaction, you swipe the card across the screen of your iPhone and funds are automatically added or subtracted from your account. Monopoly also adds a few more play options, including a mini game for escaping jail. The Game of Life, of course, lets you spin a virtual wheel, but also customize virtual pegs -- adding hair and accessories where once you were stuck with plain pink or blue ones. Game of Life zAPPed Edition is out now for $25, while Monopoly will land in June, followed by Battleship in September. Check out the gallery below and the PR after the break. %Gallery-147154%Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
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.
Previewing the nuts and bolts of MechWarrior Online
MechWarrior Online might just be one of the most exciting titles to be announced in recent times. If you have ever played any version of the game or have ever enjoyed stomping around in the Battletech universe, you'll be happy to know that, yes, the new online game is actually being made. While the IP will soon turn 30 years old, it's still very popular. Some of us remember painting metal figures to place into our tiny lances, while others have fond memories of jumping and shooting, jumping and shooting, jumping and shooting. Massively joined the press roundtable for the game this week and snagged some juicy information. We talked with Piranha Games' President Russ Bullock and Creative Director Bryan Ekman about how the development process is going, how their philosophies influence design, and how the game will actually play. Click past the cut, and watch out for heat!
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.
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.
da Vinci Robot pwns Operation, deems our childhoods forlorn (video)
What happens when a robot with immaculate dexterity comes to grips with a notorious board game from our childhood? Just ask Johns Hopkins University students, who successfully removed the wish bone from an Operation board using the da Vinci Robot. If you're familiar with the game, you'll know how incredibly difficult it was to prevent that ear-piercing noise from occurring-- even with our tiny fingers. Of course, we should have expected that a robot -- especially one capable of folding a tiny paper airplane -- would be able to accomplish this feat with such ease. Be sure to peep the pseudo-surgery in video form below the break.
App Review: Viking Lords is good fun, but could be "borrowing" too much
Sending miniature warriors –- cavalry, spearmen, archers, dwarves and giants –- into pretend battles has a long tradition, and there are already plenty of ways to do so on your iDevice. We looked at Ex Illis a while back, which used your iPhone as a scorekeeper for your physical miniatures, and there is no shortage of Risk and Stratego games in the App Store. Today we'll take a peek at a third: Viking Lords, a US$3.99 iPad app that is fun to play, but has a big potential problem. Viking Lords is an iteration of Richard Borg's popular BattleLore game system (also used in Memoir '44 and evolved from his Commands and Colors System), and this can be seen as a good and bad thing. It's kind of a good thing, because the original BattleLore tabletop board game is out of print and expensive right now. BattleLore was first published by Days of Wonder in 2006, but the rights now belong to Fantasy Flight, which will reprint the game in France. It's a bad thing because this app appears to be, pretty simply, theft of intellectual property. According to the developers, "We have had inspiration from various computer games as well as card and tabletop games. Attempt has been to try to combine the best from both worlds." Rumor has it that Borg is looking into legal action against Puffin Software, the app's developers. Since you cannot trademark game mechanics, any legal outcome is uncertain. Still, don't be surprised if this app suddenly disappears from the App Store. Perhaps it will return one day as a licensed version of either BattleLore or Memoir '44. We don't condone any sort of IP rip-offs, but I wanted to review this game for two reasons: A) it's an iOS "tabletop" board game, and that's kind of my thing, and B) I wanted to show the people who do have the rights to the game that there is an interest in porting this sort of thing over to digital devices. Plus, since Apple is still allowing the app to exist, we'll take a moment to review it. If a miniatures strategy game sounds interesting to you, read on and decide if you want to support Puffin or sit this one out and wait for an official port to hit your iPad.
Catan app adds Seafarers expansion with in-app purchase
The great Catan iOS game has added in its first expansion, available via an in-app purchase, and it's based on the Seafarers of Catan expansion from the original German board game. The expansion introduces ships and shipping routes to the kingdom-building simulation, and it includes 10 different scenarios to build ships in, as well as pirates, a Gold River tile and some extra victory cards with different bonuses. The expansion content is US$3.99 inside the app, but even if you don't want to shell out the extra four bucks, one of the scenarios is included, so you can at least see how it changes the game. The Catan app itself has been critically acclaimed, and I really like this model of releasing content -- it seems like a nice solid way of both making sure that content updates are significant improvements to an app, as well as allowing developers to get their own reward for releasing that content. Hopefully we'll see some more apps, outside of the board game model, take this approach in the future. [via TouchArcade]
App Review: Tafl brings Norse asymmetry to your game table
Mancala. Chess. Backgammon. The number of ancient board games available in the App Store is long and somewhat predictable. A fresh new entry that deserves notice is Tafl, a pretty and interesting abstract strategy game that has existed in Northern Europe since at least 400 C.E. Exactly how the game was played has been lost to history, but the general idea was to have one player move a king pawn from the center of the board to the exits, which maybe have been simply off the side or maybe into the corners. Given the wide variety of boards and locations where the game was played – and knowing what we know about how ancient games traveled – it's entirely likely that the games in the tafl family were all played differently. Well, now you can play it on a touch screen on your iPad or iPhone (or iPod touch). There is a great history of the board game(s) here; keep reading for the rest of our review. %Gallery-99522%
