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Carcassonne for iOS getting Traders and Builders expansion, Lost Cities on sale
TheCodingMonkeys' Carcassonne is one of the most popular board game adaptations on the App Store. The company has carefully recreated the German classic with care and love. Two expansions have been released, The River and Inns and Cathedrals, and now TheCodingMonkeys have another ready to go, pending Apple's review. The Traders and Builders expansion will add trade goods to the game, which reward players who complete a building, even if someone else has started it. Also, special pig and builder followers will provide additional bonuses to completed structures. The Traders and Builders expansion will be available as an in-app purchase for US$1.99. While we're waiting for approval on that one (which should be quick -- Apple's app review times are dropping in advance of the holiday rush), TheCodingMonkeys has placed their other big board game adaptation, Lost Cities, on sale for just $1.99. It's not quite as great a game as Carcassonne (which is still priced up at $9.99), but still enjoyable, more than good for a few rounds of entertainment against the AI or another player. The company says it's only on sale until the expansion is released, so grab it quick if you want it at that price.
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.
Review: Keltis Oracle is a great, light strategic board game for iPad, iPhone
Keltis is a relatively new marquee family of board games – in Europe, at least – with a somewhat meandering history. The series started as the Lost Cities card game, which evolved into the original board game in the series, Keltis. That game won the Spiel des Jahres, Germany's highest board game honor, in 2008. Since then, there have been two expansions: a card game version (different from the original Lost Cities card game) and, most recently, a new board game called Keltis Oracle. U.S. board gamers will most likely recognize the Keltis games in the similar Lost Cities: The Board Game. Are you wondering why the European version of the game made it into your iDevice? Because the developers in Tribeflame are based in Finland. In any case, the universal app (US$4.99) that's now available on the iPad and iPhone (and iPod touch) is the latest Keltis game. Is it the greatest? To some, maybe. It's certainly the most player-friendly of the batch, and it looks good on the iPad screen. The game works, but as you can see in the galleries below, it's crowded when packed into the iPhone's 480 x 320 pixel screen. Read on to see what the Oracle can do for you. %Gallery-92858% %Gallery-92913%
Lost Cities being discovered this spring on XBLA
Lost Cities, another German board/card game translation, will soon be ready for discovery on Xbox Live. The game will cost 800 MS points ($10) when it starts its online expedition this spring. Lost Cities is a card game where players attempt to score points through exploring one of five exotic locals and is designed for two players. Although the game did not win Germany's prestigious Spiel Des Jahres, it did win an award from the International Gamers Association. Always nice to see more civilized non twitch gaming experiences available on XBLA.%Gallery-19079%
