I was very excited when I saw there was an Arkham Horror Toolkit app for the iPhone.  I’m a big fan of Arkham Horror* – I wasn’t expecting to play the game in an app but I thought it would be something interesting.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Features
The app is a player’s aid with 4 functions:

• Dice roller – As it sounds, this visually rolls 3-D dice with some physics.  Text at the top states how many successes you have rolled and you can set it to count normal successes, cursed and blessed.
• Investigators -You can select an investigator, see all the info that’s on their character sheets and track all their stats.
• Location deck – Pick a map location (or Other World) and you are shown the text of an encounter.
• Maps – Pick a board and view it with zoom in and out functions.

It sounds fine but the biggest problem I have with it is this: What use does it really serve? It’s kind of fun to browse the characters and location cards but I just can’t see why anyone would use it when playing the board game.  The key problem is that you need the board game to use the toolkit so why would you use the app to replace just a few components.  You still need all the mythos cards, equipment cards, spell cards, Great Old One characters, etc. etc., plus it takes longer to keep switching between the character and location card screens on the app than using the always visible physical counterparts.

The map feature is nice enough but you can’t really use it because you can’t track character/monster locations, or track any tokens on locations, the terror level, outskirt monsters, etc.

The dice roller is alright although dice sometimes knock over other settled dice.  When a dice is knocked over, the number of successes displayed at the top of the screen remains unchanged, but looks weird when it doesn’t match the dice on display.  It’s a shame the dice don’t look like the official Arkham Horror dice too.

Price
To make matters worse, the app only covers the basic game and you have to buy the maps, location cards and characters for each expansion separately.  I want to make it clear that I absolutely don’t mind in-app purchases and don’t mind paying for extra content.  However, buying all of the expansions (small expansions costs £0.59 each and big box expansions cost £1.19 each) adds up to a total of £5.93 for content I already paid hundreds of pounds for already (seeing as I need the physical expansions to use the toolkit anyway).  I understand it takes time and money to make any app but, at £7.72 (as the basic app costs £1.79), it’s just too high.

Ideally FFG would give away the relevant extra content pack when people buy a physical expansion but, unfortunately, Apple’s App Store doesn’t offer any mechanism to allow FFG (or anyone) to do so.

Overall
Pricing issues aside, it’s such a shame that the app doesn’t serve any purpose.  Whilst it is well put together, I can’t imagine anyone using it when playing the game as they still need all the other cards, counters, board, monster tiles, great old one sheets, etc. (of which there are vast amounts).

Just ahead of the AH Toolkit, the Battlestar Galactica Loyalty Deck app was released (I have reviewed this too), but not by FantasyFlight Games.  Whilst very basic, I can see how it serves a purpose and the AH Toolkit should have followed this model.  The toolkit could have included:

• Quick Reference – States the various limits (i.e. number of gates, outskirts limits, etc.) as this varies based on number of characters and expansions being used.
• Random Character Selection – Picks a character for each player based on number of players and expansions owned (preferably with an option to have a balanced or completely random selection)
• Random Great Old One Selector – Picks a Great Old One based on expansions owned.
• Scenarios – The 20 special scenarios FFG created a few years ago could have been included and some tracking too (i.e. track which characters are still available).
• Results recorder – Record each game result (including which Great Old One, etc.).  This could feed an online database which would make interesting reading showing which Great Old Ones and expansions are hard or easy and would be a superb tool for FFG to balance the game.
• Game Generator – Pick characters, expansions and Great Old One.

I’m hoping FFG will create a Mansions of Madness app (to support their new game that’s coming) as this contains small puzzles.  The app could work as a standalone iPhone game as well as offering a way to give the physical board game extra puzzles to ensure its longevity.  I hope FFG is listening.

James.

* When I say big fan, I have all the expansions as well as a full set of character figures and a set of dice – the irony of maybe having an insanity for owning all of Arkham Horror has not gone unnoticed.

Want to purchase Arkham Horror Toolkit for iPhone?
Use a link below to go to the App Store and 4% of your purchase will go towards maintaining this site (at no extra cost to you).

For iPhone