Category Archives: apps

apps

MtG Arena hits iOS

apps, iOS, magic, MtG, MtG Arena, news, online play

Today Magic the Gathering Arena hit the iOS App Store.

Finally! It’s long over due on the platform. It came out on Android as an early access at the end of January.

Mini rant…

In my opinion Arena should have been on mobile from launch, or failing that within the first 6 months of launching. I really do think WotC fumbled the ball on this. By taking so long to reach other platforms other than PC, WotC really failed to make a significant dent into rival games such as Hearthstone. And that’s despite throwing lots of money at advertising, and “buying” streamers.

Initial impressions…

So this morning after downloading Arena onto my iPad, it had to then download even more data before I could do anything but play the tutorial. Then before the majority of game modes are made available I had to complete the Colour Challenge to unlock them. Which is basically play a mono coloured deck against an “AI” opponent playing one of the remaining colours, then the final game would be against a random real opponent. And you have to do that for each colour type, before you can play Standard or Historic for example.

The “AI” opponents are more logic puzzles than playing against an AI, as the cards drawn are the same each time. So it’s basically about playing the cards in the right order.

The real player opponent was fun. However there were some uneven matchups with obviously more powerful decks, they were not mono colour for starters. I think this for a complete novice to the game could be very off putting.

Being a paper player I have collected more than a handful of Arena codes over the last couple of years. These codes unlock decks, boosters, etc within Arena. You have to enter the code within the in app store to unlock them. However it appears that in the version of Arena released today there is no way to redeem those codes. So if like me you don’t have a PC/Mac you can’t use them, hopefully they won’t expire before WotC sort this out. Which would not be cool.

I knew I’d like playing MtG using Arena. It’s MtG with a slick “modern” UI. What’s not to like?

Another rant…

However it’s all the crap around playing the game that WotC have with their nickel and diming players for every penny they can screw out of them I don’t like.

I’ve seen comparisons online, and WotC are one of the meanest, less generous companies for this type of game. The in game economy is very much weighted in their favour.

Which means building up a collection and being able to build decks requires you to spend a lot of time grinding away, or spending lots of money. Neither is ideal.

Will I continue to play Arena? Possibly. Redeeming these codes is a biggie for me. Maybe a deal breaker.

Got a virtual ticket to ride

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, iOS, online play, virtual game night

Last night our game club Fenland Gamers held another virtual game night.

We had a new (not new to the club) member join us for the virtual game night, so I added their Asmodee username to my Asmodee friends list. I do this through the Asmodee web page. It’s easier and quicker that way. It does make sending game invites a lot simpler if folks are in your friends list. Once that was done, it was deciding what to play based on the overlap between the apps everyone owned. Which was either Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride (TTR). There were other overlaps but not for everyone.

Our game for the evening was Asmodee digitals TTR. I’ve not played the TTR app in years, and even then it was just me against the AI. So it was a first for me to be playing it online. I definitely needed to remind myself of the interface. The last time I had played any version of the physical TTR was the New York version in 2018. The original TTR I last played in 2017, and the TTR UK was 2016 on 18th March. Literally a day short of being a full on 5 years to the day!

We started off playing the original base game of TTR because I didn’t know what expansions everyone had. Which I needn’t have taken into account. It was pointed out over discord during play that only one person (the one starting the game) needed to have the expansion.

I wasn’t doing amazing in the first game, I put that down to getting back into the swing of things. Even though I didn’t win, I wasn’t last, and scored more points than Jonathan.

The second game was using the TTR UK map. I think out of the versions of TTR that I have played so far over the years, this is one of my favourite maps to play. I like the having to purchase technology to open up various parts of the map, get extra points for competing routes etc.

One annoying thing did happen right at the end when I was going to share the detailed results for the TTR UK map. It crashed! And every attempt since to go back into the game (not the app) to get those results sees the app crash. So Jonathan kindly sent me the images you see above. Sadly the UK map does not show the completed routes at the end of the game. It’s the board state just as before I trigger the end of the game and the final round. But it does show that I got the New York route that was worth a massive 40 points plus the bonus points I had from the technology cards.

Despite that app crash at the end I think that the combination of using official app versions of a game along with discord for voice/text chat works really well, especially if using a tablet device. My experience with the virtual tabletop apps hasn’t been great. Especially their iOS versions. Nope for me official app version on the iPad, and use my iPhone with headset plugged running the discord app for the chat. Works a treat.

Anyway we all had a good time. That’s the important part.

Discard 8!

apps, iOS, star realms

I’ve not done one of these Star Realms posts in ages. Mind you I haven’t had a great deal to shout about. Although a 4 game winning streak against one of the games top players was pretty cool, and should warrant a post normally. However it didn’t as that player is still winning 2 games to every 1 of my wins!

Today I finished a game against one of my regular opponents, and achieved a first for me in Star Realms. Yep after nearly 9800 games of Star Realms it’s still possible to do things for the first time.

In the past I have had it so that an opponent has to discard 5 cards on their turn. Which basically means they have no next turn, as they are discarding their whole hand of cards (although with the new docking mechanic in the Frontiers Promo expansion they could have a 6th card, or the right event card they may have drawn an extra 2 cards). I’ve been on the receiving end of this once (yep only once in that many games, plenty of times had to discard 3 or 4 cards though) and it’s not fun. Unless you are dishing it out, then it’s funny!

But as the screen shot below shows in this game if my opponent had gotten to taken their next turn, they would have had to discard 8 cards! Naturally that is not possible under normal circumstances. And these were normal circumstances. No event card or docking mechanic shenanigans going on.

I’ve never ever before today forced a player to discard more than 5 cards. This is most definitely a record for me.

So for those interested here is the video of the game just finished.

What’s the maximum number of cards you have made some-one discard in Star Realms?

My Recent Top 5 Boardgame App Plays

apps, iOS, nintendo, online play, switch

Below are the top 5 played app versions of board games for the last 3 weeks.


The first place will always be Star Realms. Having now played over 9700 games now, I’m still loving the game. Regular expansions help keep it fresh. And at any given time usually have 5 or 6 games on the go with friends.

Those that know me on other places other than this blog will not be surprised with Wingspan coming in second. I have been sharing the outcomes of games with Jonathan, and now our games include Jeff as well, on those platforms.

Speaking of Wingspan, last nights 4 player game (the fourth player being an AI) saw me win in style and just miss out on hitting the 100 point barrier.

Epic came in third because I’m currently only playing with one person, and those games are dark drafts. Which take longer to play taking into account the draft stage has to be done first before a game can start. Plus we are playing across time zones.

Naturally the last two positions are taken up by the two games we played last week during the virtual game night.

What are your top 5 played board game apps?

A virtual game night

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, love letter, online play

Last night we had a virtual game night!

I know shocked me as well. It shouldn’t have but it did. Especially considering I’m the one that suggested it in the first place!

Last week I posted on our clubs discord server asking if anyone was up for a virtual gaming session, giving a day and time for when it would happen. But there was no response. So I assumed there was no interest.

Fortunately I happened to be on the clubs discord server at the right time last night as two others turned up to play!

After some brief chatting, exchanging lists of board game apps that each of us owned, and finding some games that we all had, we settled on our first game to play.

That first game was Tokaido. I like the game a lot. It’s a beautiful, peaceful, game. Somehow Jonathan won the first game, whilst Oli won the second game.

Our second game of the evening was Love Letter.

I wasn’t sure about this app. I love the game. But could this app capture the whole play experience?

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t a bad attempt at capturing the game.

Mechanically the app is spot on. It’s Love Letter. The interface took a little getting used to. But that was a quick learning curve. I liked that when setting up an online game you can adjust the number of points needed to win. And you can switch on or off the stars that appear on a card telling you how many of that card you have seen.

I liked the banter it has where you can cause a speech bubble to appear that hurls an insult or praise. And we did that from time to time through out our game. But we were also exchanging banter via our discord chat channel. That helped a lot in the attempt to capture the tabletop experience. Maybe if we used voice it might have helped to get even closer to the tabletop experience.

For the record I had a comfortable victory.

After that win, we called it a day for the virtual games evening. It was a fun time. I’ll have to suggest doing another soon.

A couple of days ago playing Wingspan with Jonathan we hit a first for me in the game. We achieved something that I had not done in the few games I’ve played of Wingspan both physical or digital.

Firstly we drew for first place on all of the end of round objectives.

Secondly, same game, Jonathan and I drew on points after the end of game scoring had been completed.

The app gave Jonathan the win on a tie breaker which was who had the most resources left. He had 1, I had none. Robbed. It should have been left at a draw.

That contested win means Jonathan has the advantage with our current game score line being 3-4 to Jonathan.

A right mixture!

Animal Crossing New Horizons, apps, nintendo, online play, switch

I hope those of you who enjoy playing Animal Crossing New Horizons on the Switch have been keeping an eye on my daily Instagram posts about my progress in the game. I’m using Instagram so that I don’t spam here with it all.

I may write something more substantive about the game at a future date. But suffice to say that after 6 days playing it I love it.

I like the addition to the game of Nook miles. These are like loyalty points you can spend to get various items. You earn them by completing various tasks, like chopping trees, catching fish, etc. They are a bit like achievements.

Another addition I’m about to try for the first time is the push your luck turnip trading. I’ll share thoughts on that another time once I’ve tried the full experience. I’ve only been able to buy turnips for the first time today.

I’ve also got to experience the online play this morning by visiting another persons island, and then have them visit mine. That was pretty cool, especially seeing how a more advanced island looks.

The last couple of days Jonathan and I have been playing more Wingspan in its digital form.

Well we need to get our monies worth out of it. It helps that we both love the game.

The current game score is 2-2, and we started game 5 this morning. Below are the end of round scoring objectives for this new game.

I do love this view of them because as the game progresses this screen updates. So you get to see how you are doing in the current round plus all the other rounds as well. That’s so handy. Another nice touch is your current score.

But boy do the steam and Switch versions need some form of alert/notification implemented. Jonathan and I both missed new games because we weren’t aware an invite had been sent. I know it’s limitations of the platforms that Wingspan is currently on. And that the mobile versions when they appear will in all likely hood have notifications. But at current pricing I’m not likely to buy the mobile version when it’s released. It needs to be heavily discounted for that to happen. Let alone then wanting my games to follow me to whichever platform I’m playing on. But that is a possible problem for another day to discuss.

Gloomhaven has been sitting on my shelf of shame for over 2 years now. I don’t think I’ll ever get it to the table. So I was happy to find it a new home where it will be played and loved.

Wingspan on the Switch

apps, nintendo, online play, switch

I don’t think it’s a secret (if it is I don’t hide it well) that I’m a big fan of more than one game from Stonemaier Games. Heck Scythe is still my favourite game of all time (I really must redo my code to allow me to run that exercise again).

Further in the interests of disclosure for this post I should point out I love Wingspan and it was my game of 2019 iirc.

So with that information firmly out there in the open you can make your decision about my initial flawed looked at the Nintendo Switch version of Wingspan.

Compared to other board games that have been turned into digital versions, at £17 Wingspan firmly sits on the expensive side. At that price I think more than a few potential players will be put off purchasing it.

One bug bear I have with Wingspan on the Switch is what seems an age for the app to load. Admittedly Wingspan is loading from a 256GB micro SD card. But from pressing my user id to having the main menu pop up I timed it at around 30 seconds.

Once you get to the main menu you can select the “Play” menu and play against AI/Friends, Automa or complete the tutorial.

Before I go on I should point out that I have not played Wingspan in any of those options. I’ve only played it against Jonathan the once. So make of that what you will. And once again feel free to dismiss what I am about to write.

You can also go online and play against other Wingspan owners, and here is the biggie those players can be on other platforms. Which currently means those that own the game on Steam, so basically PC.

I do like the tool tip help that can be switched off or on. As the two images below show.

Below I have highlighted a couple of touches on the online menu screen that I like. The first is the display of the timer showing how much time is left for the current player before they time out. The other is your id with your karma rating. I need to look into this whole karma thing, its a new thing for the app, and is used I think in online game matching.

Wingspan can be used using a mix of touch via the Switch’s touchscreen or the joycons. I like that I can using my finger drag a card from my hand on the reserve space I want to play it.

The game uses the art from the board game really well with some nice little animated bits. The music really compliments the art and game play. It’s so relaxing. Something you could just chill out to. I also liked that when you play a bird to your reserve this is a brief bit of audio that tells you about the bird.

Below is the final state of my game winning reserve. I got lucky and had the raven early on in the first round, and then got two cards that complimented it really nicely. After the gull joined it, I didn’t need to go to either of the other two areas of my reserve. I could take eggs, draw cards and get food at the same time. It was a pretty powerful combo. If my memory isn’t failing me the first time I have had the raven in a game.

A nice touch (sadly not captured) is the end of round objectives screen during the game. It shows you and the other players current positions when it comes to scoring the objective, plus your current total number of points.

The end of game scoring is nice and I like that you can view the scoring with or without points annotation.

At the end of a game you can save the end of game state which then can be viewed from the main menu via the preserve archive. Always handy for showing Jonathan how much you beat him by.

While I am talking the main menu again below are the two setup screens that the app gives you to change the settings for audio and for the game.

The bottom image below shows the birds menu option, which basically lets you see the cards you have seen during game play. It’s almost Pokemon like in you will want to collect them all.

The image above the birds screen are the options when you setup a custom online game. Which allows you to enter a players name (cross platform option) or select a friend from your Nintendo friend list.

One thing I do miss and this is also missing from the Steam version as well (I checked this with Jonathan), are alerts for when it is my turn. I would expect that these will be present when the mobile versions are finally released. However this is a limitation of the platforms that Wingspan is currently on.

During our game at the end of round 2 there seemed to be a glitch. I don’t want to call it a bug as the behaviour we saw may well have been correct. But the app skipped through from the end of round 2 to the start of round 3 without showing the end of round scoring, and the bit that threw off John’s plans tucked a card that he wanted to play!

I did find when I first started playing the game the screens to be a bit confusing. But that’s because I jumped right in. What I should have done is the tutorial first. But after a very short period I got used to the controls.

Like Jonathan I prefer the view of the complete reserve, as it shows everything on the screen, food, the food dice, etc. Although the individual reserve screen does look really amazing.

Overall my initial impressions are I like the app. It’s a nice implementation of the board game. But the price does seem excessive.

A brief update

apps, Fenland Gamers, game of thrones

I think the Diptic collage below sums up the last couple of days fairly well.

I managed to get into the beta for the A Game of Thrones (AGoT) board game app. So I need to work through the tutorial now, and then get some games in.

I like the physical game a lot. So I’m pretty keen to try this digital version. The hope is once it’s out of beta that I can convince some of my friends to get it and we get a game or two in.

But like my physical collection, my digital board game collection has the same problem. Too many games too little time!

I could play against random strangers online. But I don’t get much enjoyment out of that. For me if I play online I like playing with friends.

Sadly even with app gaming being the only real way to game with friends during this pandemic. After a brief flurry of interest, it died off pretty quickly.

It’s a pity.

But engagement within our gaming group online seems to match that of attendance of gaming sessions. Pretty low.

I started a Discord server for the group so that members wouldn’t get spammed on Facebook from the club page, and/or miss posts. Facebook does seem to have a knack of being inconsistent in what it shows on peoples timelines.

The other positive for Discord for me is that with separate chat areas set up for different gaming interests, members can filter out the stuff they are not interested in. Not to mention the voice functionality it offers whilst gaming.

However the engagement on Discord is just as low.

My latest attempt to help improve things is to try running games of Mastermind (which died off pretty quickly), and the latest attempt a game of Chess.

I’ve not played Chess in decades. And even then I wasn’t very good at it. But we’ll see how it goes.

Unable to Install

apps, rant

Today I’ve gone through the process of transferring stuff from my old iOS device to a new one. One of the joys of free upgrades. Luckily Apple have made this a painless experience that just requires the two devices to be close to each other.

However this process highlights my main point or one of the major ones I have for board games that rely heavily or can only be played using an app.

Two app versions of board games I paid for are no longer on the App Store. So therefore no longer installable on the new iOS device.

Plus two official companion apps for a couple of board games have disappeared from the App Store.

The Crossroads app I’m not surprised by due to the recent change of ownership of the IP from Plaid Hat to FFG. Will FFG take ownership of the app and bring it back to the App Store? Who knows.

The Sub Terra app is just typical ITB. It took them much longer than promised to produce the app on iOS, and for it to disappear is just what this company are like.

I was very surprised by the disappearance of the two board game apps. These were paid for. I’m not sure why these have gone. It makes me a bit angry that these have gone. I paid for them.

But it highlights just how fragile things can be with apps.

Imagine if these had been required to play the actual game (in the case of the two companion apps they enhanced the experience). The games would be unplayable.

The likes of Ignacy Trzewiczek have dismissed this argument. They see it as a none issue. I find this approach as insulting in a way. It ignores the harsh realities of life and particularly software development.

But I’m not going to go over an old argument again. Except point made.

My Top Ten Board Game Apps

apps

During the past week the Dice Tower did their top ten board game apps. It was an interesting list from the four presenters.

But you know what I thought the world needed to know what my current top ten board game apps are.

What follows and in no particular order are my current top ten board game apps on iOS. After all iOS is my platform of choice.

Starting in the top left of the grid below we have Epic the Card Game. This game scratches my MtG itch on iOS. It’s totally free to play, you get all the cards, the only thing you pay for is cosmetic stuff or entry into competitions. And I absolutely love playing dark draft against my friends. Dark draft is a fantastic format for drafting two players. It has a great air of mystery to it. You have an idea what cards your opponent could have but not exactly what they have.

Next to Epic is Lords of Waterdeep. The classic worker placement game. A great implementation that I love playing against the AI. And the nice thing is it has the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. I love playing the game with the expansion even if it does increase the play time.

Finishing off the top row is another worker placement game Viticulture. One of the newer games on the list. Another good implementation of a favourite game. The only draw back for me is that there is no Tuscany expansion (yet). So it kind of feels weird playing just the original version of the game.

Middle row left is the two player game Jaipur. A really great implementation of a classic. Not much more I can say really.

Dead centre is the classic two player game Lost Cities. I’ve been playing this for years now. I love the game, and not having to do the maths for the scoring is a god send, as is having a count of the number of cards left in the draw deck. That alone makes life and planning so much easier when playing.

Carcassonne closes the middle row off. This is the new version of the game with the updated interface, which meant I had to rebuy everything. But it has my favourite expansions for the game so I’m happy.

Bottom left sees another new to iOS app Scythe. If you are a regular reader of this blog you know how I feel about Scythe. It’s my favourite game of all time. It’s been a while for this to be released on iOS and frustrating seeing it on the PC. But they have delivered a great version of the board game.

Tokaido sits in the bottom middle. An amazingly beautiful looking app that captures the art style of the board game. The app does something other adaptions rarely do, it doesn’t look or feel like a board game.

Finishing off the grid is Santorini. This app captures the amazing beautiful looking two player abstract game wonderfully.

Lastly rounding off the ten is probably the game I’ve played the most (with 9099 games played! and a 40.19% win ratio) Star Realms. I just love this deck builder from day one of playing the physical game to getting the app and the umpteen games I’ve played. With so many expansions now there is so much variety and replay ability I don’t get bored playing the game. Plus WWG don’t rip you off, it’s policy of pay once and have everywhere was ground breaking, tied in with games sync across platforms. So start playing on your phone, get home login on your PC and pick right up there.

One to watch out for once it is out of beta is Roll for the Galaxy. I enjoyed the board game, although like all the games in my collection it doesn’t see the table nearly as much as it should. But this app version of the game is something else. It’s become a perfect little filler game for me when I have 5 minutes spare. I fire the app up, play against the AI. The games are really quick.

I’m going to finish off this post with just a screen grab of the board game apps I have installed.

Hope folks found this interesting and maybe curious enough to try something new app wise.