There was a time not
too long ago when I would only play apps that were free to download, simply
because an average of around £3-4 per app seemed a lot to pay in comparison to
having the physical copy. This meant I was playing Blokus, Neuroshima Hex, Star Realms, Hearthstone
and Hive.
However, when I
started commuting in January I started to need a few more distractions and ones
that I could play on my Android phone rather than carrying a tablet to work.
This meant that I expanded to Ticket to Ride, Catan, Kingdom Builder, Suburbia,
Carcassonne and Ingeneous. We’ve also had Smallworld and Talisman on the PC at various times, but never used them on a smaller device.
After 3 months of
significant play-time. Here are the Yellow Meeples top 5 Android Apps for board
gamers;
1. Hearthstone is the very popular card
game implementation in the World of
Warcraft universe. I have found this super addictive over time, playing
ranked battles, obtaining gold through quests and getting really excited over
buying card packs. The game has elements of deck building, like a CCG and it is
possible that you’ll come up against someone who just has far better cards than
you, however the game does try and pit you against players of similar ability.
I find it amazing that Hearthstone is free and have actually voluntarily spent money to
purchase one of the adventures. My only negative is that you need to be online
to play and so I don’t get to play it on train journeys.
2. Ticket to Ride is one of my newer
additions. I really love this implementation of the game – it’s really smooth
and condenses a whole game into just 5 or 10 minutes. I have bought the full
set of maps which has allowed me to try out the map collections in the digital
world and informed me which ones might be a candidate to buy the cardboard copy
of. The difficulty seems to be set at exactly the right level for me and I’d
say I win around 60% of games although there is a pattern of which maps I tend
to win on more.
3. Star Realms is one of our favourite two
player games because we love the deck-building mechanic. However once I started
playing the app, the card game stopped getting a lot of table time. This is
another really slick app. On a phone the card text is definitely very small,
but you can zoom in to overcome this and when you’ve played as many times as I
have you start to not need to read it. Sometimes I do think that the app takes
some of the skill away from the game because it points out combos for you, but
it also takes out fidliness of adding up money, hits and authority and so it
becomes a really quick 5 minute game to play. I only play the free version and
therefore the difficulty has got a little too easy, but it’s still a great way
to pass the time.
4. Carcassonne is an app that I’ve only
ever played on the tablet and I can imagine that on the phone it could be a
little challenging to see the whole city. Nevertheless, the ability to play
against CPU, with pass-and-play or online makes it quite versatile. I do find
the CPU is a little too easy to beat and often misses easy opportunities to
block or compromise you and I’ve also found that online play tends to end up in
too much waiting around, but I think we’ve actually played this most in
pass-and-play mode on train journeys where it is a complete exact replacement
of the base game.
5. Neuroshima Hex is a game I would
never consider owning a cardboard copy of. It’s a two player direct
confrontation and is actually quite an abstract game which typically means Amy
will be best at it and I’ll get annoyed when it feels like she’s being mean to
me. From experience on the app I can also imagine that it is quite fiddly to
determine the order and effects of a fight. The app however makes the play very
intuitive and even in the easy mode the CPU provides a decent challenge. The
app was my first experience of playing the game but I picked up the mechanics
and rules really easily without relying on a tutorial.
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