iOS, Android • You remember Cublo Games, right? They’re the folks behind the digital version of one of my favorite board games, Martin Wallace’s Brass. Brass was released in late 2015 so, you might ask, what the hell have they been doing for the past 2+ years. Well, polishing Brass for one, but they’ve also been hard at work on another board game port, Among the Stars.
iOS Universal, PC/Mac/Linux, PS4, Xbox One • Sorry I was AWOL yesterday, but unbeknownst to me (and for no reason I can ascertain) my two younger kids had off school yesterday. This allowed me to do real-life things with them like fix my attic stairs and teach them a slew of new curse words. Today’s a new day, however. The new attic ladder appears to be functional and I can’t wait to get a call from the school’s office today informing me that my kids decided to share their new vocabulary words. Oh, I also got a chance to play Armello on both my phone and iPad and it’s good. Very, very good.
iOS, Android, Mac • When it comes to board game ports for mobile we immediately start thinking of the greats: Playdek, Czech Games, Digidiced, and Goko. Okay, Goko isn’t great, but you can’t tell me that you don’t think about them, particularly when you need something to laugh about. One developer that isn’t on that list is Outline Development. Who? See, I told you! They’re the folks behind iOS versions of games like Qwixx, Camel Up!, and the unfortunately monikered, The Game. Who? Okay, so none of those are “must have” board game ports (although The Game is a nice solo diversion), so why am I talking about them? Let me explain.
iOS Universal • It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything relating to the App-ocalypse, the destruction wrought on the App Store when iOS 11 dropped last September. It was at that point that 32-bit apps were deemed unworthy of our love and sent packing. One of the better casualties was the digital rendition of Stone Age from Campfire Creations. This wasn’t a huge surprise, considering that Campfire Creations died a while back, leaving no one to update the app. Turns out, Campfire Creations wasn’t quite dead and, in fact, are feeling better. They definitely don’t want to go on the cart. How can we be so sure? Yesterday, Stone Age was updated to work with iOS 11.
iOS Universal, Android • Our old friend Peter Kossits went quiet for a bit after he released Baseball Highlights 2045 in 2016, following that up with a slew of updates including new content and an AI. Understandable, as he’s a one-man show whose main gig isn’t writing games in Unity not to mention having to put up with flack from yahoos over at BGG picking apart everything as if he were Blizzard or Firaxis. Well, Peter is back on the App Store with a new release. This time its a solo card game that I’d only heard about because it might have one of the most interesting themes in all of gamedom. That game is Hostage Negotiator.
iOS Universal • Well this was supposed to be a big surprise with an embargo in place for early this morning, but it appears that was broken yesterday afternoon when a trailer appeared in our forums and tweets started floating about Twitter. I guess the embargo was more “guidelines” than actual rules, to quote Captain Barbossa. So, with the cat out of the bag, I present to you a new Warhammer Quest 2 expansion: The Lord of Khorne.
iPad, PC/Mac • Back in 2015 Tabletopia begged for money on Kickstarter and we all [by “all”, Dave means “himself” -ed.] obliged by throwing money at the project. What wasn’t to like? Tabletopia promised the ability to create any tabletop game you could dream up and turn it into an online gaming experience. Not only that, but the graphics would be all 3D and look just like their physical counterparts. It would be just like sitting around the table with friends! The finished product landed on Steam shortly thereafter and, yep, there are hundreds of board games you can play on your laptop. Today, there are six games you can play on your iPad as Tabletopia has made the jump to the App Store and is currently in an open beta state.
Tabletop • Dickens famously wrote one book about two cities. Martin Wallace, on the other hand, topped that by designing two games about the same city. You know, I’d been milling that intro about in my head for days and it sounded way better there than it does when I type it out. Unfortunately, my delete key is broken so it will have to remain as-is [unfortunately, my delete key is broken too, or it would have been destroyed. -ed.]. What I’m trying to get at is that I’ve played London by Martin Wallace. I’ve played it a lot. I’ve played both the first and second editions and I’m going to talk about it after the jump.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac • Don’t let the snarky headline fool you, this is some awesome news. Remember the other day when we learned that Asmodee Digital was taking over publishing duties for some of Playdek’s catalog and wondered what that meant? Would anything really change? Well, it hasn’t with Playdek (yet), but today another game that Asmodee took over publishing duties for, Talisman, did something amazing. Earlier this morning, Nomad announced that all IAP (and there is a ton of it) is now cross-platform available. I may have just wet myself.
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac • We looked at the Steam version of original board game, Antihero, last year and kind of loved it. We knew it was coming to mobile at some point down the road, but yesterday it just showed up on the App Store without any warning. Did we do something wrong to not get a press release? Does Versus Evil hate us? Probably, but I like to think they were just releasing it all stealthy. You know, like a thief in the night. Because it’s a game about thieves. Yeah, you’re right, they probably just hate us.