I’ve spent far, far too much time in the last few weeks at BoardGameGeek.com, but that’s not my favorite site. I’ve known about that one, so it suffers from the familiarity.
No, my favorite site combines two of my favorite things: iPads and boards games. It’s iPadBoardGames.org.
(For what it’s worth, I generally refer to these as “table games” rather than board games.)
From BGG I learn that there are even more popular and interesting-to-me games than my beloved Carcassonne [7.43] and Setters of Catan [7.51], like: Ticket to Ride [7.48], Small World [7.57], Arkham Horror [7.58], Tigris & Euphrates [7.89], 7 Wonders [7.96], Dominon [7.97], and Agricola [8.24].
From IBG I learn that there are more popular iPad board games (the list is in the right margin) than my beloved Carcassonne, including a few of the same names! Tigris & Euphrates and Ticket to Ride top the iPad list, while Small World comes in at number eight. In addition, Agricola, Dominion, and 7 Wonders are all expected within months.
Arkham Horror has two strikes against it as an iPad candidate, I think. It’s a cooperative game, and it can take four or more hours even for experienced players. There are other cooperative games available, including Elder Sign: Omens, billed as “Arkham Horror lite.” That gives me hope that Arkham itself may one make the leap, and also gives me something to play in the meantime.
iPad versions of table games have advantages and disadvantages, like anything else. It can be tough to gather enough people for a multiplayer table game, especially if it’s one you enjoy more than your friends. With iPad, there are usually options to play against artificial opponents or play online, so single-player multi-player gaming is possible. With iPad, nobody will ever knock pieces out of position, or send dice careening through Western Europe, leaving the original placement of infantry and artillery in question. Setup time and effort is trivial for iPad apps. Games tend to be less than $5 or $10 for iPad, while the physical games are often closer to $30 or $40. Some games, like Neuroshima Hex, even have a free “lite” edition, so you can get a pretty good idea of whether a game suits you before spending any money at all.
Then again, having used both the iPad and physical editions of Carcassonne with groups of players on game night, it does seem that the physical pieces spur more lively interaction. You can buy quite a few physical board games without approaching the price of an iPad! Finally, some games just aren’t available on iPad yet.
I reject the Tyranny of the OR and embrace the Genius of the AND.
