Archive for the 'iPhone Review' Category

Many serious gamers may feel Carcassonne is too simple for them as it’s a great gateway game; however, I recommend they don’t dismiss Carcassonne on iPhone as it has a lot to offer.

THE GAME
In Carcassonne, players place tiles which show parts of roads, cities and monasteries and place them together to build an entire countryside.  On their turn, a player takes and places one tile so that it fits next to any already placed tiles ensuring features like roads continue onto newly placed tiles.  After placing a tile, the player has the opportunity to place one of their 7 meeple (mini people) onto the just-placed tile.  Placing meeple is the way to score points and a meeple can be placed on a road, in a town, in a field or on a monastery. Read the rest of this entry »

Like me, you may know Wabash Cannonball as Chicago Express as that’s the name under which it was released by Queen Games.  For this review, I’ll refer to the game as Wabash Cannonball as that’s the name of the iPhone app and the original game, but the games are (as far as I’m aware) the same.

THE GAME
During the game, the players develop railroad networks in America.  Different to many games, players don’t own a single railroad company but, instead, can buy shares in any of the railroads and earn money from dividends. Going clockwise, players take an action to either start an auction for a share in a railroad, extend a railroad (in which they own shares) by 3 pieces of track, or develop a space.  Each round, there are 3 auction, 4 development and 5 lay track actions available.  When two of these three action types have all been used, the round ends and dividends are paid to railroad shareholders.  The dividend paid per share is the railroad’s value (based on the spaces it runs through) divided by the current number of shares owned. Read the rest of this entry »

After many years of having Windows-based smartphones, I decided to change to an iPhone because (a) I didn’t like the look of the new Windows phones, and (b) I saw various board games being released on iPhone.  Zooloretto was the first major conversion and was the first one I bought when I got my iPhone.

THE GAME
Zooloretto is a light board game that won the coveted Spiel des Jahres award.  Players are all zoo keepers with their own zoos and they try to fill their enclosures with different animals.  However, there are some difficult decisions to be made.  On their turn, a player can either draw a tile from the bag and place it on one of the delivery lorries (which have space for 3 tiles each) or they can take a lorry and keep all the tiles on it.  The tiles are either an animal, a coin or a concession stand (i.e. popcorn).

So, do you take a lorry so you get just 2 tiles but ones that you want, or do you want or risk someone else takes it before you get a chance next turn so it will have more tiles on?  Read the rest of this entry »

THE GAME
Samurai is a game of tile placement where players try to surround towns and cities with their different strength tiles in order to capture as many of the three different types of tokens as possible.  The winner is the player who owns two majorities of the tokens (or has one majority and more other tokens than their opponent).  For a description of the game, please read my full review of Samurai the board game as the gameplay of the iPhone game is exactly the same (as you would hope). Read the rest of this entry »

I was interested in Neuroshima Hex when it was released at Spiel a few years ago.  However, I didn’t get a chance to play it then, or since, so I was pleased to see it released on iPhone so I could finally give it a go.

THE GAME
Neuroshima Hex is a 2-4 player combat game using hex tiles on a relatively small hex grid.  Each turn, players draw 3 random tiles, discards 1 and play the other 2 tiles.  Some tiles have immediate effects, like grenades and push-backs, so aren’t placed on the board; however, the majority are units which do get placed on the board.  Some units can attack enemies (ranged and melee) and icons on the tiles edges show in which directions they will attack – the player chooses which direction they face when placing them.  Some other units boost the performance of some neighbouring units. Read the rest of this entry »

THE GAME
Kingsburg is a dice-rolling, resource managing and building game.  Players roll 3 dice and then take turns allocating combinations of their dice in order to gain the benefits of the 18 different advisors.  For example, allocate two 4’s (or a 5 and 3, or 6 and a 2) and you can use the number 8 advisor (Treasurer) who gives the player 2 gold.  Players use their resources (gold, stone and wood) to build buildings which give players victory points as well as a wide variety of abilities like re-rolling a dice, added strength in battle, bonus VPs, extra resources and so on.  The 20 different buildings are split into 5 groups and each group has a level 1, 2,3 and 4 building.  The buildings within the groups must be built in order, so a player can only build a level 2 building if they have built the level 1 building in the same group, and so on. Read the rest of this entry »

THE GAME
Roll Through the Ages is a bit like Yahtzee meets Civilization.  Players roll dice and they can keep the results or re-roll as they wish.  After 3 rolls, or if earlier if desired, the player uses their results to hire workers, feed workers, gather goods, build monuments, and develop their civilisation. The goal is to score as many points as possible.

Players start with just 3 dice and hiring extra workers can give them up to 7 dice to roll each turn; however, workers can not be fired and must be fed each turn, so lots of dice means lots of mouths to feed too or you lose points.  Points are primarily scored by creating monuments which takes workers and you only score when you complete a monument – so sometimes it’s better to start building a smaller monument that you think you can finish rather than risk not completing a larger one.  Read the rest of this entry »

THE GAME
In Medici, players are merchants bidding over goods at the dockside so they can load their ships.  There are 5 different types of goods and each good tile has a value from 0 to 5 on it too.  On their turn, a player draws 1 to 3 goods one at a time and then auctions the good(s) off as a single lot with the current player bidding last.  Players get just one chance to bid and can only ever buy a total of 5 goods in a round.  If no-one bids on a lot they are thrown into the sea.  A round ends when the goods run out or all players have their full 5 goods each.

At the end of a round, players potentially gain florins for their ships and their goods.  Ship’s Score: Players each total the values written on their goods tiles – the player with the highest total number gains 30 florins and the next highest amounts gains florins too – the exact amount of florins and the positions that score are based on the number of players playing.  Goods Sore: Each good tile (regardless of the value written on it) moves its owner’s marker one step along the relevant goods track (i.e. two cloth tiles would move the  player’s marker 2 steps along the cloth track). Read the rest of this entry »

After more than 5 years of having Windows PC smartphones, one of the main reasons I switched to an iPhone was because of all the boardgame conversions appearing on it.  Looking at my survey results so far, over 50% of respondents play games on their iPhones so it seems I’m not alone.

Therefore, I’m pleased to announce that from Friday 24th September, the Metagames blog will also be reviewing iPhone board games in addition to the usual board game reviews too.  To kick this off, there will be a new iPhone game review every day for a week as well as the usual board games reviews and posts too. Read the rest of this entry »