Board gaming making the digital leap?
I’ve been a big board game fan for many years. Especially what is normally called German style board games. I won’t go into those details now, but it’s enough to say there are a lot if great games out there that are much better than monopoly or risk which you grew up with. Being a technology lover I’ve been excited when ones hits the PC but often the results have been disappointing. XBox live has had some great success with Settlers and the like, especially multiplayer. People just don’t want to see in front of the computer. I’ve loved Settlers on the iPhone, but it’s single player. The iPad may start to change that. Smallworld, which some of you might know as Vinci, already has an app on the iPad store. Scrabble had a pretty good game before, but now with the iPad you can see the whole board at once. What about your tiles? You use your iPhone or iPod touch to view them and just flick the tiles to the iPad when you are ready to play your word. A pretty cool implementation. Is it going to replace board games? I wouldn’t suggest that. The is still something special about move pieces around and exchanging cards with other players. It’s also a lot more expensive. I can’t imagine getting an iPad and a few iPod touches just to play scrabble. But if your friends already have them what a compact way to carry it around, especially for multiple games. Instant board game anywhere. I’ll be excited if this catches on a little more.
1 year ago
