A Game A Day (For A Year)—Part IV

I don't like to rely on my iPad for my daily games, but sometimes, life is so busy that there's no other choice. I've played on the train, heading home from work, and I've played on the couch while catching up on recorded television shows. I managed to fit in three tabletop games, but four out of seven games this week were made possible by the wonders of Apple. So let's talk about the tablet gaming phenomenon a bit.

Since I acquired my first iPad back in 2011, I have played a number of tabletop games and immediately thought: "This would work great as an iOS game." If I were more of a programmer, I would probably have gotten into app design by now. But, while I've dabbled in programming, and I find it fascinating, I would just rather spend my game-design time writing and jiggering numbers, rather than figuring out which line of code is keeping the program from running.

So I'm always happy to see when a company creates an iOS version of their board game, so that I don't have to learn to code. Lords of Waterdeep is a favorite, as are Elder Sign and Ticket to Ride. I wish that Sentinels of the Multiverse had a tablet version (EDIT: and now it does), and the same with Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (EDIT: and so does this one), but if they did, I'd probably never play anything else. (EDIT: Okay, yeah, I do play other things. Time makes a liar out of us all, now and then.)

This is not to say that I'm only into tablet games for the boardgame ports. I play a fair number of more traditional video games, such as Bejewelled, Spell Tower, and Limbo, and I have several more that I keep on my iPhone and iPad for when I have a lot of time to kill (like when I play Telltale Games' The Walking Dead while traveling by plane).

Of course, most of the time when I play games on my phone or my tablet, I'm playing against the computer. The rest of the time, I'm playing against my wife, or, occasionally, a friend. I'm just not that into playing random opponents on the Internet, for the same reason I'm not into participating in discussions on Twitter: There are a lot of jerks on the Internet, and I don't feel the need to make their acquaintance. Doesn't help that I'm an introvert, either.

It also doesn't help that playing an online game—particularly a turn-based one—takes time, and the point of these online games, for me, is to while away the time on my ride to or from work. If I'm only making one play every several hours, that's fine for an occasional diversion, but then what do I do with the rest of the commute?

As an example, you'll notice that my Thursday game this week was Scrabble, played against a random opponent on my iPad. It's now Tuesday morning, and I just took my most recent turn in that game. There are still ten tiles left in the bag. (I'm losing, by the way—by over 60 points.)

This sort of thing is why I never got into play-by-mail games, or their more modern equivalent, the play-by-email game. I prefer a game with more immediate feedback, although I certainly don't mind walking away from the table between turns; a short break is sometimes exactly what I need to regroup my mental faculties and refocus my attention.

And in fact the lag time between plays, as bad as it can get, is sometimes an Internet game's greatest attraction, for me at least. I've noticed that I play games like Scrabble or Spell Tower or even Sudoku in bursts, and then I'll put it down for days or even weeks, when I can't decide what my next play should be. (I find that I do this with first-person shooters, too—and it usually pays off: I've battled boss levels over and over for hours at a time, only to give up in frustration, then return weeks or months later and nail it on my first try. I've even got a game of Limbo in, um, limbo until I can figure out how to get past a particular spider.)

But playing Scrabble against a random opponent is my first real step into the larger world of game apps. I'm not quite ready to play online poker—mentally or financially—but this relatively positive experience has demonstrated to me that maybe, just maybe, I can find online opponents who aren’t such a chore to contend with.

1/19/14: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Paizo Publishing), 2 players (Lini, Seelah, Sajan, Seoni), The Skinsaw Murders

1/20/14: ZMR (En Masse Entertainment); 2v2 PVP

Elder Sign (Fantasy Flight Games) iOS, random investigators

1/21/14: Tank Riders 2 (Polarbit) iOS

1/22/14: Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder) iOS ; 3- player (me vs. 2 AIs); won one, lost one

1/23/14: Scrabble (EA) iOS - random opponent via Facebook

1/24/14: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Paizo Publishing), 2 players (Lini, Seelah, Sajan, Seoni), The Skinsaw Murders

1/25/14: New World (Rio Grande Games); 2 players, 2 games (won both)