Carcassonne Makes it to the iPhone, iPad to Follow

We heard earlier this week that our favorite modern classic Carcassonne [Amazon, Funagain]" had finally made its way to the iPhone/iPod Touch. We held off pushing the story to the web so we could put it through our paces and decided to either endorse it or pan it.

Well good news! The Coding Monkeys have made a heckuva port of Carcassonne. The game is smooth, clean, intuitive, and polished. It even has voice overs in the tutorials! How about them apples?

You can play in a special solitare mode, or against AI. You could even create a game with your friends over the Internets and the the server will give you push notifications when its your turn. How cool is that?

Other features include online ranking, 8 different AIs to play against, and the promise of new expansions moving forward. Not bad for 5 bucks.

Finally something else worth noting: The Coding Monkeys are working on an iPad version of the game. If you order the iPhone/iPod Touch version now then you'll be able to download the iPad version for FREE later on. Now there's a nice consolation prize.

Carcassonne for the iPhone/iPod Touch is available from the Apple App Store, and it's definitely worth your time if you or your family is into Carcassonne.

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Blokus Now on your iPad and iPhone

Just a quick heads up that the incredible entertaining - and Mensa Best Mind Game of the Year 2003 - Blokus [Amazon, Funagain] has been ported to the iPhone and iPad platforms [AppStore]. (Ed: native iPhone app, simulated fullscreen on the iPad.)

The game challenges you to strategically cram your Tetris-like pieces on the board (on the diagonal of existing pieces, not packing them together), while meanwhile preventing your opponents from doing the same. This digital title sports AI if you're home alone, or you can play up to 4 people through a local wireless network.

The only complaint we have about the game is that there's no hotseat multiplayer. Bummer.

Here are the official details:

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The new award-winning hit board game arrives on the App Store! Play with your friends in local or online Multiplayer mode at one of the 4 game variations!

Rules are simple!
The winning strategy: Block your opponents so they cannot add anymore block on the board!
Blokus™ is a strategy game that will captivate you and get into your mind.

4 GAMES IN ONE
Each game variation requires a totally different strategy:

• 4 players control each one color,
• 2 players control each two colors,
• 4 players play in teams,
• Blokus Duo™: There is only 2 different colors, the board is smaller and the start position is in the middle of the board.

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Blokus for the iPhone/iPod &iPad is available the Apple App Store.

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Civilization Revolution for the IPad is Stunning

Now bear with us here. Civilization Revolution for the iPad is a port of the Console Version of the PC Version of the Board Game Version of Civilization. You got it? Good, get it.

We have loved, LOVED, every iteration of Sid Meier's Civilization for the PC. We were actually reluctant to even try Civilization Revolution - the console version - because we feared that Firaxis would dumb-down too may of the interesting systems that made the PC version oh so great. We almost boycotted it based on such snobbish principals.

But we're also consumerist, and when Civilization Revolution launched in 2008 the consume-all portions of our psyche won out in the end and we snatched it up. And boy are we glad we did. The game was simplified or "streamlined", for sure, but the game still remained the fun, "just one more turn" Civilization at heart and we milked hours of enjoyment out of it. And it was balanced oh so well, too. Games went faster, presumably becuase the couch sitting audience was a more casual audience. This makes it sound inferior to the PC version, but it worked on its own as a separate take on Civ, and it worked well.

And now it's here for the iPad. Only tweaked a little here and there for the new touch interface and the iPad's graphics capabilities, and it's just as fun as ever.

Currently the latest version of the game has some bugs that cause it to unexpectedly quit on saves. This is indeed a problem, and considering Firaxis' gung-ho effort to develop the game for iPad's release we assume they're currently hard at work trying to fix the issue. This isn't a show stopper, either, so feel free to game on!

Here are the official details.

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"Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution comes to the iPad, extending the award winning Sid Meier's Civilization® series to Apple's newest device. While offering all the great features of the award winning console game, the iPad version introduces the exclusive World/Scenario Creator.

The World/Scenario Creator is an entirely new feature for Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution which allows players to customize the world and game parameters to create hundreds of different scenarios and game types, providing limitless hours of entertainment. Additionally, Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution has been updated and optimized for the iPad's larger 1024x768 pixel high resolution screen, with an enhanced user interface that improves the fidelity of world map tiles, leader portraits, icons, and a broader view of the world map enabling increased vision and strategy for tactical gameplay. "

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Small World Hits iPad on Launch Day. Crazy!

Wow. We've always admired Days of Wonder to be one of the more tech savvy board game publisher. Each of their titles ships with a codes printed on their instructions that let you play their games on their online game site. That means that for every game they work to produce in card board form, there's another incarnation brewing in their computer lab, too.

So if any one publisher was going to make a shift to the iPad, we suppose it would have been Days of Wonder. No surprise there. But to have a game on iPad launch day? Crazy.

Check out the official website for more information on Small World for iPad. Or checkout the 'analog' version of the boardgame at Amazon or Funagain Games.

Here's the official word:

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Small World is an award-winning fantasy game where players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate all of the zany races such as dwarves, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs and even humans that inhabit it. Sitting across from each other around the iPad, you will use your troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other players' races off the face of the earth, in this rip-roaring fun digital board game.

- Days of Wonder

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