Quick post today, just to officially start the “back in the office” blogging era.
Humble Bundle had a deal on PC games base on board games, like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and Pathfinder Adventures. Overall I’m happy with the purchase, but playing the digital versions of the games isn’t all rainbows.
For starters, Carcassonne has a super-annoying bug with achievements, where it doesn’t remember what you have earned. The result? Because some of the achievements will always happen (make your first city, or your first road), you get spammed with them every single game. Very annoying, and just drives the point home that not every game needs or is made better by achievements.
Pathfinder Adventures on the other hand is the definition of a game that, at all times, has me questioning whether I’m actually having fun, which means I’m not. The game is ‘fine’, but I found I was closing it down after every single game, win or lose, until I just realized I probably should stop opening it in the first place.
The digital versions also play much faster than the physical versions, which is convenient, but leads you to finding the flaws or annoyances much faster. Plus physically playing with real humans leads to general interaction, and without that the games feel kinda sterile. It’s not that their bad, it’s just that they’re not as good as ‘pure’ videogames in most cases, even with the option for online play.
Hardcore Casual 
I played Carcassonne on the iPad for a stretch and it was pretty decent there. But I have noticed that sometimes the tablet version is the better version. With Ticket to Ride, for example, the version up on Steam is a bit clunky while the iPad version is exactly what you want out of a digital version of a board game.
Have you tried Through the Ages yet? It’s my all-time favorite board game and the digital conversion is excellent. If a game is a series of interesting choices, this is as good as it gets. I recommend getting the mobile version, since the 2-player game is really quick and fun whenever you have a couple of minutes to burn.
I have not, will look into it later tonight.
Ho humm, I have mixed feelings about this.
I played Carcassone somewhere 10 years or more ago on the PC (I guess I have the CD-ROM somewhere) – it even had local multiplayer. We played it so much that a certain someone now is sick of it and won’t play the real board game version anymore. Meh.’
Ticket to Ride.. I also got this one on CD, even for free when buying the board game – it was a very good computer version.
The third one is Talisman, which I bought on Steam – and I hated it. Maybe the physical Talisman has childhood memories of me and a friend playing 8h matches (with house rules), maybe it was just too Pen&Paper-like for me to enjoy the digital version solo.. but it is what it is.
So I guess in general I’m kinda out on that one, for now. Board games are social for me, to be enjoyed sitting at a table – and no awesome gameplay can remedy that solo at home. That’s what video games are for me.