iOS, Android • Over the weekend I was invited to partake in designer Tim Fowers‘ next foray into the mobile gamespace, Burgle Bros. His previous board game port was the absolutely fantastic, Paperback, so I was immediately on board for checking out whatever Tim was working on. The only difference is that I’d played the cardboard version of Paperback before the app landed whereas Burgle Bros. was a completely new entity for me. Let’s take a look.
iOS Universal, Android • Last week an observant reader pointed me toward a Touch Arcade story in which they praise the game, A Planet of Mine, to the high heavens. Having not heard of this apparently hidden gem, I immediately went and downloaded it and…well, I’m not sure. Is it worth downloading? Absolutely. Is it the bee’s knees? Depends on how smart the bee is.
PC • A long, long time ago there was a brand new developer that wanted to make high quality, complex war games for iPad called Shenandoah Studios. Sounds crazy, I know, but it really happened! You could say they succeeded, with fairly amazing releases such as Battle of the Bulge and Drive on Moscow proving that complex strategy on iPad wasn’t just a pipe dream. In 2013 they ran a Kickstarter for their magnum opus, Gettysburg: The Tide Turns, an American Civil War title for iOS as well as a cardboard version. Nearly 1000 folks gave them close to $30K to develop it. As of July 18, 2017 those backers haven’t seen hide nor hair of Gettyburg on their touchscreens, nor their tabletops. Instead, last week a version for PC arrived on Steam.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac • We’ve known that the wargame developers Lordz Games Studio and HexWar are working on bringing the classic GMT title, Commands & Colors: Ancients, to our iPads for a bit. What we didn’t know is that C&C: Ancients isn’t the only project they’ve been teaming up on. This morning they launched another board game (well, card game) conversion on iOS, Android, and PC/Mac based on a 2004 Dan Verssen design, Lightning: D-Day.
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac • I’m a huge fan of Klei Entertainment, who have managed to port several of their very polished PC titles into very polished mobile apps. Their latest was the turn-based spy thriller Invisible Inc., which I really need to spend some quality time with, one of these days. I really, really enjoyed it when it was released but…well, it seems I never have the chance to sink that much time into one single game these days. Back when I could sink a lot of time into one game, I did just that with Klei’s other fantastic mobile port, Don’t Starve. If there was one complaint I had about this survival gem, however, it would be about just how damn hard it is. I mean, I get that a steep difficulty is kind of the point of surviving in a hostile world with nothing buy your brains to get by, but playing for hours and getting killed by a spider because you weren’t paying attention and having to start over was a huge pain in the ass. For those of you who felt the same way, Klei has just updated the app with a new mode promising a simpler adventure for the simple among us (me…I’m really talking about me).
iOS Universal, PC/Mac • It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from genius developer Michael Brough, creator of such gems as Imbroglio and 868-HACK, but he resurfaced last week with an unexpected addition to his classic hacking roguelike. The update fixes some bugs and makes some balance changes to 868-HACK, but the biggest addition is that of a new expansion: PLAN.B.
If you haven’t read my Antihero piece from earlier today, you might have missed my descent into warm fuzzies for the good old days. I wasn’t sure what had caused me to slip into darkness until it dawned on me that I received a missive from my counterpart at our old digs, Pocket Tactics. Why would that send me into a state of depression? Well, it’s been just over a year now since I picked up my ball and went home and, yes, there are days I miss it. I love it over here at Stately Play, don’t get me wrong, but getting paid didn’t suck.
PC/Mac, (mobile coming later this year) • When I heard that Antihero had been released for PC and Mac it conjured up feelings of excitement for finally getting to see what the fuss was all about, and then sadness because all that fuss was generated by Owen way back when. In 2014, Owen was so excited about the promise that the first Antihero trailer made, I feared his head would explode and we’d be picking up bit of skull from all corners of Mt. Hexmap for weeks to come. Now it’s 2017 and things have changed, Owen is AWOL, and Mt. Hexmap is under new management. Why am I being so damn maudlin? Antihero is out, and so far it’s exactly what Owen would have hoped for.
iOS, Android • I’ve heard people mention three web-based boardgaming sites often: Brettspielwelt, Yucata, and, um, Bootyjew (that’s what I’ve always heard it called, and I am proud of myself for finding a link despite that). BSW has always sounded the strongest, but it wasn’t enough for them–now they’re coming for our mobile devices, as well. Their first foray: Friedemann Friese’s Friday, a sterling choice. It’s a well-regarded solo game with complexity just a bit above Onirim‘s, so they avoided the twin bottomless pits of development effort: AI and multiplayer, like Pitfall Harry. I looked it up–that’s actually the name of the character from Pitfall! I’m not excited about it, it just seemed like a waste of punctuation to end a sentence with “Pitfall!.”
iPad, Android, PC/Mac/Linux • When Prison Architect landed on our tablets earlier this year, it was a big deal. It not only marked another major PC title making its way to mobile, but it was also published by Paradox as part of their new focus on mobile gaming. We never got around to writing a review for Prison Architect here, mainly because it’s too damn big and I just never felt like I got deep enough to have an opinion that’s worth a damn [as opposed to your other opinions? Okay… -ed.]. The parts I did play seemed pretty polished and right in line with what I was familiar with from the desktop version. Apparently, however, the game had more bugs than an entomologist’s fever dream. Version 2.0 was just released and, judging by the patch notes, all the bugs have received a death sentence.