Carcassonne has been on iOS for years.
I’ve owned it for years, had all the expansions they added.
It was a good implementation of a board game classic.
But things change. Never developers pick up licenses, old ones lose them.
For whatever reason a new version of Carcassonne got released, and given a make over.
Where the previous version was a good looking game that accurately represented the physical game. The art used was the art from the tiles. With a 2D top down view.
This new version adds an isometric camera view (bottom left) to go alongside the 2D top down view and other graphical flourishes that make the game seem fresh.
Naturally you can easily swap between the two views to your hearts content, and settle on the one you prefer.
Some of the flourishes include animating the meeples so that they bounce on the board in the isometric view. Or at the press of the button you get to see which areas of the board are covered by farmer meeples(top left). Or the dragon tokens that keep count of the number of moves the dragon has taken, along with possible moves and where it has been (top right).
I also like how a city only gets built once it has been completed. Until then it is just a muddy outline.
I’ve only played against the AI at the moment. Which was something that wasn’t possible in the previous version (there were puzzles/challenges you could do, but that didn’t work for me). Sometimes the AI can take a couple of minutes or longer to make a move, which is annoying. But on the whole I’ve found the AI challenging but not over powering.
There is online play across platforms. However I’m not one for playing against strangers. I much prefer playing against friends. Said friends have not got this app yet. So this isn’t something I’ve used in this version. There is also a text chat option to. But I refer you the just made statement about online play.
The main drawback for me with this new version is that I’ve had to buy everything again.
But it does have my favourite expansions as in app purchases. These are The Abbot, The River, Inns & Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, The Princess and Dragon, and the Winter Edition (not purchased yet). I like what these add to the game, they extend it’s playing time. But that’s a compromise I’m prepared to make, as they add so much.
I really like this new version.
This must be specifically new for iOS users, as I’ve had Carcassonne for several years on my Android device and it has always had an isometric view (as did the very old PC game by Koch Media).
The current version available of the Google Play store is the exact same version that is installed on my device, so I guess the developer of the old iOS version was not the same as the Android developer.
I think the developer did change this one is Asmodee the older original iOS version was a different developer.
It was your ‘This new version adds an isometric camera view’ comment that made me think, “wait a minute, my Android version already has this”. And your screenshots look exactly like my Android version. A quick Google informs me that the iOS version was developed by The Coding Monkeys, who have indeed lost the licence. Which means you’re only now catching up with us Android users, who’ve had a superior version for some years now :D
This also means that some of your friends can indeed play a game online with you now that iOS users have finally caught up – and we don’t need to purchase the game or it’s expansions a second time ;) (my username is the usual one)
The old version was a nice version, I just like the improvements introduced. And indeed I was aware that the new better looking version had at the time been released on other platforms.