Qwirkle is the more popular and award winning precursor to Iota, a game I reviewed not too long ago. They share a similar premise and more or less the same strengths and faults. However, I can’t play Iota on my iPhone or iPad. Meanwhile, Qwirkle is readily available on iTunes. Wanting more of this style of gameplay on the go, I gave Qwirkle on iOS a shot.
If memory serves me well, I’m pretty sure Blokus was one of the first board games to make the jump to iOS. Despite all of the positive things I heard about it, I never bothered to give it a chance until I played and bought the physical game. At first, I downloaded the free version to try it out and was immediately put off by the ad implementation. I understand the need to include ads to subsidize a free version of the game, but the full-screen video ads that would interrupt my game every three moves or so are obnoxious. Instead, I put down the $1.99 to play uninterrupted.
Marvel’s deck-building game is one of my favourites. Together with Upper Deck, they’ve done a great job of supporting Legendary with a steady flow of quality expansions. Most recently, they revealed the latest addition to the family, which is Legendary: Marvel Villains Deck Building Game. This time, you and your friends assume the role of the villains as they try and defeat the superheroes. At a base level, this is simply a role reversal, but it actually opens up the game in interesting thematic ways.
Micro games have become a hot trend in the board game scene, but Iota takes it to the next level. Standing at about two inches tall, two inches wide and an inch thick, it’s hard to imagine putting much of anything in there. Once you crack that tin open, you’ll get 66 cards that are part of an interesting abstract strategy game.
In Forbidden Island, you and your team of adventures set forth on this island in search of mystical treasure. The problem is, the island decides to sink whenever punks like you try and make off with the goods. The game starts with you and your group scattered across this place that is already flooded in spots. Your goal is to collect all four treasures and return to the helicopter pad before one many calamities permanently halts your progress.
Just in case you were wondering, yes, this is the precursor of Forbidden Desert, which I’ve previously reviewed. That game was one that made a lukewarm first impression but when it clicked, it really wowed us with how exciting of an adventure it turned out to be. Due to my enjoyment of that game, I decided to take a stab at the game that spawned the franchise.
With millions of copies sold and a countless number of variants and evolutions since the 1930s, Monopoly is a board game institution. Even in 2014, you can go to any board game section and find at least three different versions of the game available for sale. Heck, I don’t even remember the last time I played a physical version of Monopoly with people, yet I happen to have the Nintendo and Family Guy editions of it on my shelf.
No one will argue the game’s ubiquity, but can it stand on its gameplay alone? The further I delve into the hobbyist gaming community, the more I see people label it as a bad game. Do I agree with this notion?
I don’t know what Doctor Lucky did to piss everyone off, but it must have been serious if everyone is trying to kill him. In Kill Doctor Lucky, everyone is stalking the man through his house in hopes of taking his life before anyone else does. However, the murder must be done without anyone looking, and the good doctor’s four leaf clover seems to be putting in overtime based on how easily he’ll slip past your attacks. In a way, it’s sort of like the prequel to Clue.
Set in The Resistance universe, Coup is a game about rival families fighting their way to political power through mostly dastardly means. What this means for you and up to five of your friends is that you’ll partake in a fast and nasty game where lying is greatly encouraged.
King of Tokyo puts you and your friends in shoes (paws?) of giant monsters that are battling for supremacy. Though they don’t share the names of the most iconic kaiju in popular culture, it’s not hard to see who Godzilla and King Kong are among others. Your weapons of destruction are energy cubes, cards and dice. Lots of dice. Only one will remain when the smoke clears, but is this a battle worth fighting for?
For a genre of tabletop gaming that’s synonymous with thick rulebooks, lots of number-crunching and campaigns that can last forever, Dungeon Roll aims to distill that classic role-playing experience into a shorter and more streamlined dice game. In this adventure, 1-4 players take turns delving into this treacherous dungeon to kill monsters and collect loot. After each player has taken three trips into the dungeon, the person with the most experience points wins. Is it worth suiting up for this dice-based dungeon crawl?
In Third Person 