I couldn’t be any more excited when Astraware Boardgames was released. I have had my hands on a couple of Astraware games back in the days when my Windows Mobile device was still around. The thing is that Astraware are HUGE in WM and Palm OS gaming, and they didn’t get there by chance. Their games are very well thought and consistent, gameplay is a pleasure, they have really the lowest amount of crushes and hangs amongst the competition, they carry a killer support team as well as a nice on-going conversation with the customers, they also frequently release new games or update old ones. If those aren’t reason enough to be psyched about them joining the Symbian platform, I don’t know what is.
Astraware’s decision to jump like gladiators in the S60 gaming fighting arena didn’t come in the perfect moment. With EA, Gameloft and Infinite Dreams, as well as others joining the N-Gage hurricane, Astraware won’t have the red carpet rolled for them. So let’s see how Boardgames acts and if it’s on par with the expectations as well as the competition.
Game choice
Astraware Boardgames features 8 different classics: Ludo, Chess, Checkers, Nine Men Morris, Reversi, Snakes and Ladders, Backgammon, Tic Tac Toe. As said, these are all classics, and it’s a good choice for Astraware. Introducing a well-known series of games which everyone has played at one point or the other is a good strategy, because you can just pick up the handset and start playing. No getting used to a new concept, no learning of weird new rules.
Gameplay
Boardgames couldn’t be any more intuitive than what it is now. You can basically play all the games with the D-pad and it’s a pleasure to not have to worry about a handful of keys and functions. Just move to the piece you want to move, press, select the direction and press again.
One other great thing about Boardgames is that it’ll remember your progress in each game if you close it by mistake, or ask you to do so if you press exit. This means that you can pick up your handset, launch the game and continue from wherever you left off. That is a killer option, and it should be written somewhere in a “golden rules to developing a mobile game” book.
Boardgames also seems to function well on different resolutions, as well as in portrait and landscape mode. I had RotateMe running in the background on my N95 and was surprised to see Boardgames rotate with the device without looking cramped up or distorted. The rotation takes like 2 seconds and I have found it to be the perfect way to play on the N95, holding the device horizontally. The nice thing to remember is that they actually bothered to make it work in both portrait and landscape by overhauling the whole interface and not just stretching it, and that is sweet!
With Boardgames, you can also have different player names and modes. The best thing is that each player can have his own settings, and his own game progress which remains until the next time he plays, no matter who plays in the middle. You’re also allowed to play against another human, which means multiplayer mode is on, once you’re ready to pass the handset around. I sure hope that bluetooth multiplayer will be supported later on.
Menus & Options
I already mentioned how Astraware are consistent with their games, this is something you will notice with Boardgames. No matter what game you’re in, if you press “Menu”, you will always be presented by the same layout. You can change the Game Settings (level, hints, animations,…) and once you’re done, you will be asked if you want these changes to apply to all games or to only the one you’re playing. Perfect.
Each game also has a set of rules that will introduce some new perks to the gameplay. You will for example choose on which number you’re allowed to start on Ludo, the board size on Snakes and Ladders, the starting player in Reversi,… If you don’t know what each rule means, you can always run the Instructions and get familiar with it before choosing to activate it.
The Games
To tell you the truth, I was never good at chess nor at checkers. I guess my plans to conquer the world will fall in seconds. But when it comes to other games, I felt right at home.
The first game I ever launched on Boardgames is Backgammon. I am not the best player on earth, but Backgammon is part of our Lebanese culture, with the 1980s old men sitting in the cafés, smoking cigarettes, sipping black coffee, playing backgammon, joking and talking. We have all grown with a backgammon game in the house and although I never bothered to learn it until a few years ago, it immediately became my best board game. Boardgames on Astraware won’t replace the sounds of laughs in the cafés nor the smell of the cigarettes, but it does play very well. If you’re an average player, you’ll enjoy enabling the “One Touch Control” in Options. If you’re an advanced player, you’ll likely disable it to have more control over your moves.
Ludo is the game I played most after Backgammon. When I first started it, I didn’t know what exactly “Ludo” was, but when I saw the board, I remembered those childish times when I used to play against my cousins. I tweaked the game settings a little bit, in order to bring a new level of excitement, but I only managed to lose once (out of like 30 or 40 games?).
Reversi is a game I am still getting used to, Tic Tac Toe kicks in during those moments of desperation, and Nine Men Morris is a game I never played and didn’t bother to learn so far. I have a feeling it will become on par with Chess and Checkers, one of the games I am afraid to start because I know I’ll lose.
Snakes and Ladders remains the game I hated the most because it didn’t need any interaction from my side. The dice rolled by itself, I couldn’t chose when to stop it, so I was only left to move my piece, which is ridiculous.
Verdict
Boardgames is for those of you who are looking for a good mix of games to run on your S60. If you enjoy playing Chess or Checkers or Backgammon or Reversi, you will find that having them as well as some others in the same application, with just one icon is great. If you have some kids, hand them Tic Tac Toe, Ludo or Snakes and Ladders and they’ll have a blast, especially if you create player names for them and allow them to play against each other when in the car for example. Although the price of 19.95$ is a little bit high, it is next to nothing if you divide it by the number of 8 games (that’s 2.5$ per game).
After enjoying Boardgames for 2 weeks now, I can say that I am pretty much impressed with it. It’s Astraware’s first S60 3rd Edition game and it works better than I thought. The only two problems I’ve had with it are the fact that it doesn’t recognize the keypad when typing the player name, as well as a minor glitch I found in Backgammon that seems to be due to the fact that I am an advanced player, and that most users won’t face it. I have yet to see Boardgames crash, hang or give me one of those dreadful “Error xxx” messages. It works intuitively, and proves that Astraware aren’t joking about stepping in the Symbian arena and getting some asses kicked. So, am I pumped up to see more games from them now? Most definitely!
