Category: Game Releases

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. To recap what you may have missed so far, we’ve refreshed a couple of our buying guides, so if you’re wondering what the best board games or best sport manager games are, we’ve got you covered.

We also reviewed Donut County (see below), and spotted a great deal for Android users. Finally, The Lord of the Rings digital card game released on Steam at the start of the week. It’s still due on mobile as far as we know, so go watch some gamaplay if you’re interested in how its coming along.

Back to the real reason you’re here: We’ve got an eclectic mix of sims, RPGs, and other games for you this week.

Out Now

Donut County (iOS Universal) (Review)

“A story-filled physics puzzle game where you play as a hole in the ground.” That’s a great tagline for what sure looks like a fun game. The basic idea is that you play as a hole. A small hole to start with, but you start swallowing things, pretty much anything, and get bigger. Then swallow more things. Michael had four-stars worth of love for it in yesterday’s review, and you can check it out to learn more about the game. 

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Noch mal! (iOS Universal and Android)

We’ve got another tabletop-to-digital conversion this week, this time it’s dice-rolling box-checking point-tallying Noch mal. In Noch mal you earn points through BINGO-esque gameplay where you roll dice and mark off squares based on your results. If you’re the first to mark off a column or all of the same-colored boxes you earn points. The trick is that you can only check off connected boxes. It takes a little bit to get used to the rules but plays pretty quick from there. Noch mal supports solo mode or pass-and-play for two players.

Pro Strategy Football 2019 (iOS Universal)

NFL training camps are in full swing and armchair-GMs are spending plenty of time second-guessing their team’s choices. Pro Strategy Football 2019 lets you do more than talk about how best to manage a pro-football team. You are able to lead the team of your choice through one or many seasons including the draft, training camp, the regular season, and of course the playoffs.  The game hasn’t licensed the right to use real team and player names, though there is a way to customize them if you’re so inclined.

The simulation has several layers and you not only make personnel and depth chart decisions but can coach games in either casual or expert mode or simulate them and move quickly through seasons. Personally, I like the career view and seeing how many seasons play out. It’s very similar to the developer’s college-football simulation game, created as a college project, and mentioned by me almost two-years ago in one of my earliest News by Numbers posts. I do wish the game simulated free agency and player trades, but Pro Strategy Football 2019 still has plenty going on and should entertain most pro-football fans.

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Golf Club Manager (iPhone and Android)

Football not your thing? How about golf? Golf Club Manager brings sports simulation to the links. You are hired by club owner James to turn around his struggling course. You’ve got to string out low daily profits as far as possible to make improvements and attract more players with the ultimate goal of hosting championship events. Golf Club Manager‘s graphics are pretty basic, but the simulation is strong. It’s worth a look for simulation fans and golfers alike.

Sales

Egglia: Legend of the Redcap (iOS Universal and Android: Free)

)Egglia: Legend of the Redcap is an RPG where you play as a young elf named Chabo who must explore Egglia, gather resources to build a village, battle enemies in turn-based combat, and make friends with various spirit companions. It’s a premium game but is free for now.

Trader’s Way (iOS Universal: Free)

Another free game this week is stock-market simulator Trader’s Way. The UI is pretty basic and there are some issues, but it is free and buy low sell high is the idea, right?

Warhammer Quest 2 (iOS Universal: $.99) (Android) (Review)

One of my most anticipated games of 2017, Warhammer Quest 2 was a bit disappointing at launch. They’ve since shored up one of the biggest issues, the lack of challenge, by bringing back the ambush mechanic. The sequel still isn’t as good as the original, but it’s still fun and certainly worth the current sale price of a dollar. Not only is this the lowest price yet for Warhammer Quest 2, but there was also a content update that added two new characters—the Witch Hunter and the Bretonian Knight—and 20 new weapons, armor, and equipment.

Heroes of Steel RPG Elite (Android: $1.99) (iOS Universal)

A tactical RPG in the same vein as the great Templar Battleforce, Heroes of Steel is also by the Terese Brothers and well worth checking out if you’re a fan of the genre. Remember most Terese bros. games have a free version as well supported by ads.

Suburbia (iOS Universal) (Android: $1.99) (Review)

Suburbia puts you in the shoes of a city planner competing to build the best city. You mix residential, commercial, and industrial areas and must include expected amenities like airports, museums and more. The multiplayer is only local pass-and-play, sadly, but there is a single-player campaign that moves through real cities.

Halcyon 6 Starbase Commander (iOS Universal: $3.99) (Review)

One of the best games of 2017, Halcyon 6 is a space-based strategy, RPG, and simulation game and features fun and tactical turn-based combat. If any of that sounds like your kind of thing the game is worth every bit of its $6.99 regular price—$3.99 constitutes a no-brainer!

Seen anything else you like? Played any of the above? let us know in the comments! 

Donut County is a quizzical, whimsical not-quite puzzler brimming with charm and vision. Players control a hole in the ground, ‘driving’ it around town to swallow anything and everything they can find. The story unfolds in L.A., land of fantastic donuts and cute animal residents disappearing en masse. In dry mechanical terms, this hole grows bigger with each fallen thingamajig swallowed during a level which means a complete level is also an empty one.

Overall, the game’s tone is droll, odd and at times a bit anticlimactic. While the experience is admittedly brief and the challenge practically non-existent, the game is an easy thing to recommend solely on the strengths of its aesthetics and good humor. (In every sense of the phrase: that is to say: its cheerfulness and wit.)

Its version of L.A. is stuffed with pastel hues and animals of all species and temperaments, but the game also begins on a mock-sombre note: the characters are all stuck nine-hundred ninety-nine feet below the ground, huddled around a campfire and taking turns commiserating. The game’s levels show how things got so wretched while the characters tell and embellish this tale. Pacing thus bounces between dynamic, punchy levels and the weirdly endearing scene underground, which serves to both introduce the cast and provide a dose of exposition. Our antihero, the rascally raccoon with a heart full of trash, BK, spends these interludes denying any and all accusations. His neighbors say he is the one responsible for the mess they’re in. In between this mainline argument there are quips and side quarrels about birdwatching, cat soup and moral justification for hacking. Yes, really. It’s also worth noting that this review’s diction is pretty much the polar opposite of Donut County’s breezy, bouncy dialogue. What is modern and fresh to some might be artificial and grating to others, but in general I’d rate the game’s characters and phraseology a big, refreshing plus.

As for gameplay, the levels are short, each with a small twist and different environment. Holes fill with water, frogs jump, bunnies ‘cuddle’ off-screen, chameleons hide and try to dodge the hole while cockroaches run towards it. So there’s pretty decent level variety and design, and most importantly, the feel and physics of the core ‘I’m a whole in the ground’ schtick are…surprisingly solid. It tracks fluidly, and objects fall and fit into the hole in a fairly intuitive and intelligible way. Some objects with sharp corners or unusual shapes will take a little more manoeuvring to get to fall. Progression is linear and a little flat in the game’s earlier section, though the final few are diverse and rich enough to make up for it. The game is more like a toy than a puzzle, proper, though, for its environmental interactions and number of player tools are extremely limited. It would be boorish to say this is a flaw, fatal or otherwise, but the comment needs to be added to the record because the game doesn’t belong to any particular wheelhouse. This will inevitably disappoint some expecting a holotype of beloved genre X. Donut County is very much its own thing.

But its style recalls other very fun, very unique games like Chuchel or Hidden Folks, and the story, though delivered with jokes and self-referentially ‘full of holes,’ is well-developed and with a nice thematic and emotional ending. Also the philosophical underpinnings and off-the-wall item descriptions (from the Trashopedia, no less) are to die for. The characters are barely given any lines yet already feel like they have distinct lives and opinions. The game builds the player’s understanding of a small world and its weird community, as its levels ask that player to tear it apart.

It’s a satisfying paradox and one familiar to those tinkerers: make it, break it, see what makes it tick. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and to BK, people homes are just giant trash receptacles, and in this world, raccoons covet and collect trash nonstop. So the possum recluse’s hideaway home is naturally strewn with masks and shrouded in darkness, because he’s a tech-savvy remote recluse by choice. There’s a smidge of the scrap-as-story to this, snooping around someone’s room to see what kind of person they are which is common to games like this as well as indies like Gone Home or What Remains of Edith Finch, even stuff like Prey or Bioshock. Basically, Donut County is all about environmental storytelling. It’s successful and low-key about it is all, so unless you’re looking for it or specifically a fan of the technique, it isn’t actually flashy enough to impress.

Donut County is also the poster child for quality over quantity. Every moment is memorable, amusing and distinct, but there also aren’t very many. For most players a complete playthrough start to finish will last about two hours, give or take some variation. The only enduring complaint is that the early levels do a lot of heavy lifting story-wise but are a little flat, with the hole growing in pretty much the same way each time.

A little arty, very funny, quite fun and brief, Donut County is a vivid vignette and great romp for an afternoon. Dive right in and lose yourself in its quirks and you’ll be delighted, jump down the hole with an archetype or rubric to fill and you’ll be bitterly disappointed. More oddball than cornball, the game is youthful, creative and clearly the product of a lot of time and imagination.

Digital board games have been getting better and better as the years go by – from made-for-digital games like Anti-Hero, to digital ports of popular table-top games like Scythe and Settlers of Catan. We’re now enjoying a veritable cornucopia of entertainment.

Bored of board games? Perhaps you’d like to check out our list of top-quality RPGs instead…

With that being said, it’s always a good day to pick the best of the best from the hoard of excellent board games. We’ve stuck with digital ports of physical games for now, and we’ve tried to cover a range of genres and types of games. It is our great pleasure to present to you our pick of the best boardgames for iPad, iPhone and Android. We’re a mobile gaming website, so we’d know these things.

Developer: Acram Digital
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android 
Price: $6.99
Genre: Strategy/Economy
Cross-Platform MP: Yes

This 2018 boardgame adaptation courted controversy when the developers were caught doing dodgy things with Steam reviews, effectively blocking the PC release. That didn’t stop them releasing on mobile though, and we’re so very glad they did.

Istanbul: Digital Edition is pretty much a flawless conversion of an excellent board game that has few moving parts and only limited information to track, which makes for an ideal mobile game. There are options to set up online games or offline multiplayer contests with a mix of human and computer controlled opponents. AI rivals blaze through their turns and on the hardest level offer even experienced players a challenging game. The evocative graphics stay true to the board game and the atmospheric music and context sensitive sound effects are the icing on a very tasty cake.

One Deck Dungeon (Review)

Developer: Handelabra Games
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: $9.99
Genre: Card Game/Dungeon Crawler
Cross-Platform MP: No

The physical version of One Deck Dungeon by Asmadi Games is an excellent distillation of the pen-and-paper RPG formula, converted into card-driven strategy game that can played with a small group of friends, or even solo. Lots of tabletop games jump to digital and struggle to create a quality single-player campaign mode, instead relying on a passable AI and the lure of various multiplayer modes to provide enjoyment. Handelabra’s digital conversion of ODD suffers no such worries. It is packed with meaningful strategic decision making and oozing with replay value.

It’s another game that’s ideally suited for a mobile version and Handelabra have knocked it out of the park once more – one of 2018’s best releases by far, and a must-have for anyone’s collection provided you like card games and RPGs. Also, you may need to spend some time referencing the rules as you learn the ropes, and there’s always that harsh mistress that is Chance. Still, an excellent game all round.

Ticket to Ride (Review)

Developer: Days of Wonder/Asmodee Digital
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: $4.99
Genre: Strategy/Set Collection
Cross-Platform MP: Yes

An ‘original’ boardgame port, Ticket to Ride was an excellent proof of concept for the genre. Ahead of it’s time perhaps, as we’re only now starting to see the digital boardgame market really take off, but for a game released in 2011 Days of Wonder did a pretty bang-up job.

A game doesn’t get wide appeal with complicated rules, so Ticket to Ride isn’t going to give quite the tactical crunch you might want from meatier games. But it plays in less than ten minutes and manages to include a variety of delicate balancing problems: tactical vs. strategic, producing points vs. disrupting others, securing valued routes vs. obscuring your true goals, and seeking the rewards of missions vs. avoiding costly failures. A game which offers all that, and which you can comfortably play with children makes this an easy inclusion in any digital collection.

Lords of Waterdeep (Review)

Developer: Playdek, inc.
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android 
Price: $9.99
Genre: Worker placement
Cross-Platform MP: Yes

Another excellent Playdek adaptation, Lords of Waterdeep‘s mobile ports hark back to the developer’s heyday, before things to got a little rough. Despite offering a number of small innovations to the worker placement genre, it’s only a little harder to learn than something like Stone Age. At its core is a pretty abstract exercise, the theme it’s loosely connected to is so rich that it’s easy for it to shine through in more playful moments. Perhaps it’s even for the best that there’s no personality to hang on these cubes: you might start to feel a little bad about sending you characters on dangerous missions.

The interface, though portrait-only was very modern at the time and holds up well now: lots of lovely little touches and animations, reasonable menu structures with the options you expect from Playdek, and the information you need but a tap or scroll away. On the iPad, there’s perhaps enough room to put more of this onscreen at all times, but it’s about as crowded as you’d want on the phone, and there’s value in a unified interface.

Developer: Asmodee Digital
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $3.99
Genre: Co-op
Cross-Platform MP: No

Pandemic: the cooperative game that launched a trillion microbes. Pandemic, the war waged against emerging  for a clean bill of health. One to four players coordinate members of a global response team who treat individual locations for the outbreak. To win, players eliminate four separate virulent strains and prevent a pandemic and its ensuing apocalypse.  Mostly, this means going to specific cities and removing disease cubes on-site, but to win the final victory, players must also pool and share resources until they research cures.

The game’s state of balance is a winning mixture of strategy and chaos, with the location deck providing a little uncertainty. Each player has a unique role and power which further specializes their niche. If the co-op nature of the game seems mild, consider that the ‘cooperation’ of choosing the best actions for the team can bring out the most bilious, divisive side of friendship. Fun solo, but even more lively with a group. The app is a dream: simple, intuitive, replayable and with the game’s expansions offered as DLC. Its only drawback is the lack of online multiplayer, but cooperative games shine best in-person anyways.

Developer: Nomad Games (Asmodee Digital)
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: $3.99, $3.49
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure 
Cross-Platform MP: N/A

Talisman is a sprawling, chaotic, dice-based, fantasy race to the Crown of Command. Players might occasionally do battle or sling spells at one another, but for the most part the game is a struggle to build up a character’s stats and equipment until they can brave the challenges of the inner regions. Once they make it to the end space, the winner will use the devastating power of the Crown of Command turn by turn until all other characters have been eliminated. The core action of any turn is simply rolling a dice, moving across the board and drawing from the encounter deck, so it is easy to pick up.

The game has almost a dozen expansions, a thousand cards in many separate decks, a score of alternate endings. It has some of the zany unlikely comboes of Cosmic Encounter yet unlike the latter is not a direct conquest. The digital app is sleeker, for the magic of the board game can get bogged down in half-hour setup or longer, not to mention tracking everyone’s stats and inventory. The app refocus the game on the journey and removes other distractions, letting the game transport you to another world that never was, and never will be quite the same again.

Developer: TheCodingMonkeys, Asmodee Digital
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $9.99, $7.99, expansions as IAP
Genre: Tile-placement

Tile-laying games are almost always soothing by nature, but the best of them, like Carcassonne, feel dire at the same time. Named for the beautiful French settlement established in misty B.C.E., the game sees players building the fields, roads and fortifications of its namesake turn-by-turn, with meeples staking claim on scoring zones. The game actually comes in two in two app flavors: vanilla 2D by TheCodingMonkeys on iOS and then a 3D re-release by Asmodee on Android. Both are excellent and well-supported offerings.

Twilight Struggle (Review)

Publisher: Asmodee Digital (developed by Playdek)
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $5.99, $3.99, expansions as IAP
Genre: Hand-management, Action allotment
Cross-Platform MP: Yes

Historically didactic and apocalyptically intense, Twilight Struggle is the premier two-player card duel simulating the height of the Cold War as it played out across the global stage. The app’s release was long awaited but has since already been feted, for its release was a milestone and one of 2016’s highlights. Full of double-think and crisis management, the game is relatively easy to play and easy to lose.

Through the Ages (Review)

Developer: Czech Games Edition
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $9.99
Genre: Strategy/Civilisation
Cross-Platform MP: N/A

Despite the name, Through the Ages is the hot new kid on the block. Charting the rise and continued hegemony of your civilization takes card-drafting chutzpah and attentive resource management. The app features a droll, informative tutorial and one of the best user interfaces within recent memory. Previously, to experience one of the enduring greats of board gaming, one had to wrangle together several committed friends and four or more hours for a first play. Now, one of the best games of all time (by present-day hobbyist consensus, anyway)  is easier to play with a wider audience.

Terra Mystica (Review)

Developer: DIGIDICED
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $9.99
Genre: Strategy/City-building
Cross-Platform MP: Yes

Terra Mystica could somewhat reductively be introduced as a heavyweight fantasy offshoot of Settlers of Catan. The game’s unique factions and interrelated systems of ritual and magic make for a fresh, intricate euro whose middling runtime doesn’t keep it from packing serious decisions. Even the initial placement phase can scuttle a player’s chances if it takes a bad turn. This level of competition and interdependence is always great fun.

Publisher: Asmodee Digital (developed by Playdek)
Platforms:  iOS
Price: $6.99
Genre: Worker placement, Euro

Agricola, cruel master of fate, in which farmers struggle just to get by and maybe have some kids to help out with the day’s work. The game’s pinched cycles of boom and bust are seasonal yet also aspirational, tasking the players to marginally better their situations by stockpiling food, learning a new profession, breeding animals or else investing some other healthful, gainful pasttime. Agricola is only punishing in light of how many sheer options there are to pursue, yet despite all of the various cards, this is a classic worker-placement Euro at heart.

There is another version of the game that’s on Android. It was developed by DIGIDICED and is called Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small (4/5). You can find it in the Google Play and iTunes stores.

Hall of Fame

We’re keeping the list pretty tight at the moment, but there’s way more than ten excellent boardgames to celebrate, with even more on the way every year. Every now and then we’ll rotate games out for other games, but we don’t want those past greats to be forgotten. Below is a list of previous members of this list, never to be forgotten:

• Patchwork
• Tigris & Euphrates
• Neuroshima Hex
• Puerto Rico
• Elder Sign

What would your list of the best boardgames look like? Let us know in the comments!