So the reason I haven't been posting recentlyis here. I have made the initial small outlay of buying an Ipad and now have to finance my way through several thousand apps. Apps which prove to be bigger, brighter and pack more features than can be found on the ipod/phone. Theres been a great Catan port to the ipod touch, which makes the most of the lack of screen real-estate, which has yet to be realized on the Ipad. But there have been releases of an picture perfect ‘Small World’ app, Carcassonne has made it in a slightly different guise under the bizarre title of ‘Might and Card Golden’, as well as many of the classics such as Scrabble, Chess and the like.
Of course the ipad will never replace the games themselves, it just cant compare to the physical presence of the original. But I did try playing Pandemic on a busy train across NZ once and needless to say it didn't really get off the ground. The Ipad offers portability, ever increasing choice and style. I can now fully hope to play a game of Small world or Carcassonne on a plane, I don't even have to decide which ones to take with me! The pad offers some inventive features I haven't seen realized with playing the same versions on your laptop. Scrabble and poker both have support for wireless/bluetooth connections to Iphone/pads so you can play on a central game board with your tiles hidden in your hand. Im looking forward to the day I can hide my resource and development cards in my phone over a game of Cities and Knights.
Despite all these options however the app I’ve used far more than any other has been SmartGo Kifu. Go is like no other board game, entirely abstract, its been described as where chess is like a battle, go is a war. The rules are simple, to surround as much territory as possible but the outcomes from playing on a 19x19 board are near infinite. To become confident at this board game requires training and not only does SmartGo give you a good computer opponent player to play against (easier said than done in a game that relies mostly on abstract pattern recognition and is rooted in philosophies of strength and weakness) but it also gives you tutorials, problems and past games to review and learn from.
Perhaps this is where the true greatness of an amalgamation of board games and computer games lie. Battling the rule book of Agricola was a right of passage for me, but inevitably our first few games were full of mistakes, illegal moves, and slow, slow progress. We all appreciate being taught a new game, why not let that teacher be your Ipad?
4 comments:
Yeah, one of the things I liked about Xplorers (catan) on asobrain is that it helps you to refine your knowledge of the rules.
I think I'll always prefer the physical touch of the board game to a computer game, but computers will definately play a role as teacher (and they're also great at doing boring admin for you, like picking up cards).
Tech talk: How did you get hold of an ipad in your back-water with roads that are barely two lanes wide?! They're out here on Friday but I haven't pre-ordered and so I expect I'll have to wait longer than that. Which model did you go for?
Just off trade me (the NZ equivalent of ebay - looks exactly the same, but with less stuff!), theres plenty of people whove been to the US and brought one back to sell at a bit of a premium, almost all of them are unopened. I went for the 64GB wifi (Not 3G) one. I figure Ive got 3G on my phone, and i find that pretty expensive and I hardly use it so I dont really need it. Its bloody good. I pad about $200NZ more than a direct translation of the US price for it, and I figure 1. Theyre gonna be sold at a little more than that in other countries and 2. thats only about 80 quid for p+p and for getting it a little early is fair enough. But Its good, its not for everyone, and its certainly not necessary, but i love it.
I'm def gonna get one but I'm thinking do I need 64 GB? It's not like I'll use it as an ipod so I don't need all my music on it and surely a couple of movies at any one time is enough. The apps can't be that big so is it really necessary?
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