App versions of board games

With board games and smart phones being two of the most popular diversions around nowadays, it’s inevitable the two will meet. I thought I’d look at a few of the app versions of of board games I’ve played. I won’t talk too much about the game itself; I want to focus on how good the app adaption (appaption?) is.

Lords of Waterdeep – You knew I was going to start with this one! As you can imagine, I’ve played this app to death (over 750 games). It was recently given a facelift in preparation for the the new iOS and while objectively the new look is cleaner and more compact and probably overall better, I don’t like it as much. You can’t see your cards all the time like you could before, and I just got too used to the old one (I also liked seeing the whole board, replicated exactly from the tabletop version). But it is a very good recreation of the board game. The A.I. is fairly dumb; I’ve seen it make some really awful moves. And turning up the difficulty doesn’t help; it just means you’ll get attacked more.

Price: $9.99
Worth it? Heck yeah

Ascension – As I mentioned in the last post, the base game can be downloaded for free, but there is a charge for each expansion. I’ve played the base game A LOT. I haven’t bought any expansions for a couple reasons: I’m not too excited about the ones I’ve seen, and I don’t want to have every card in the whole thing memorized. The adaption is really good; the game plays quickly and smoothly. The A.I. is not great, but not terrible either. It definitely has its own playstyle, and tends to favor the same cards over and over again. One thing that’s nice for me is it NEVER buys my favorite card, although it will banish it. Sadface. If you pick one app off this whole post, make it this one, since it’s free and so, so addicting.

Price: Free!
Worth it? Duh

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small – My wife has this one on her tablet and I haven’t played it a ton but I’ve played it enough to give it a fair shake (I should play it more actually, it’s pretty fun and my wife doesn’t love the board game so I don’t get to play it that often). The GUI on this one is really funky; it takes some serious getting used to if you’ve played the board game. Not everything is available on one screen; you have to switch screens to look at your actual farm. One super annoying thing is that if you want to move your animals around (which you need to do constantly in this game) you can’t just drag and drop. You have to move them into a common area with an accompanying animation, then to where you want with another animation. Big waste of time. But overall it’s a fun game. The A.I. is pretty good, and no pushover to beat.

Price: $2.99
Worth it? If you like the board game

Stone Age – Because the board game was out of print for a long time and uber-expensive as a result, I started playing this on iOS. It was eventually reprinted so we got a copy of the board game, but my wife and I both like the app version better. It looks really nice, and it’s a little more clear visually what you’re doing each turn. The A.I. play is up and down, but overall it’s very fun. UNFORTUNATELY, the last iOS update completely broke this app, and it is now unplayable with the latest update (Apple eliminated all support for 32 bit games, which this one is). There is a post on the developer’s Facebook page saying they’re working on an update, but it’s already been 3 months, so who knows when that will actually happen. Too bad, because this is a great app to own and play.

Price: $6.99
Worth it? Certainly not right now (unless you have an old device to play it on), but definitely if there’s an update

[This next app review is from my wife Jessica! Since I’ve only played it once and she’s played it a fair bit, I asked her to write this one up :)]

Patchwork – I love Patchwork and was eager to get this app after Dan and I had played the board game probably a hundred times. As far as I remember, it was easy to learn to use the app and it’s a pretty good representation of the game. There are a couple annoyances, though: 1) The pieces change quilt patterns each game, so I have to pay closer attention to recognize them. “Big blue” is not always blue, for instance. (Dan and I have names for some of the pieces.) It even contains one less button–why would they change that? 2) Either I’m an idiot, or the computer is HARD to beat. I play the medium level and have only won maybe three times ever. The app has mostly been sitting unplayed lately, but I just realized I can play my friends without a Google+ account, like I originally thought, so I’m eager to try that. Overall it’s a good app, but it’s not the same as playing the actual game and fitting the actual pieces together.

Price: $2.99
Worth it? Eh, if you can get used to the changes

Ticket to Ride – This is a really good app. It’s super easy to play a local game (2 or more people on the same wi-fi network), even if it’s cross-platform. There are a ton of expansions available, and they even are on sale occasionally. The A.I is pretty good, and can really hose you over (especially in the base game, where it’s a lot easier to hose another player). I haven’t been playing this one as much lately but it’s one that I’ll go back to for sure.

Price: $8.99
Worth it? Yes, especially if you can grab it on sale

That was fun! I may have to do another of these in the future once I’ve got a few more to review. What are some “appaptions” you enjoy? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!