iOS Universal, Android •
Sigh. Look, I’m all for new games on the App Store, but at some point we need time to, you know, actually play some of the games on the App Store. Can we slow down a bit? Today’s new addition and must-try is Lotus from Renegade and Dire Wolf, the same pair behind another board game puzzler, Lanterns: The Harvest Festival. Like that game, Lotus has a zen-like quality to it and is more of a relaxing card game than cutthroat experience. It also has flowers, lots of flowers.
The goal of Lotus is to build flowers, each of which will score you points based on how gosh darn pretty it is. Actually, it’s based on how many petals it has, with the more petals racking up more points. You also have guardians which you can place on unfinished flowers, with whoever has the majority of guardians being the one who gets the points when a flower is completed. And because games aren’t games without special powers, everyone has a once-per-game special ability they can fire off as well. All-in-all, it’s a rather simple card game with some thoughtful decisions to be made each turn mixed with a little bit of interaction as you battle over the finished blooms.
Lotus has both solo play against AI and online asynchronous play if you want to play your friends:
• Online asynchronous matchmaking against old friends and new
• Strategic solo play to hone your skills against AI players
• Progressive Challenge system to guide you through gameplay
• Intuitive tap-and-drag petal placement for fast and easy play
The game is available today for both iOS Universal and Android at the links below.
I think I’ll hold off on a review. A beautiful game on the table is one thing, a beautiful game on a digital screen is another. While a good-looking tabletop game can overcome rather basic gameplay due to the quality of its visuals, because the digital marketplace is chock-full of good-looking games, a digital board game has to have more going for it. Just take Takenoko, for example - it’s an ok game, a gateway game, but it’s look really boosts its popularity; I don’t know if that goes for the app or not.