The mobile and the games

With busy schedules, carrying around pieces for a board game can be tough. From Race for the Galaxy to Ticket to Ride, these are the best board games for Android gadgets.
Representational Image.
Representational Image.

CHENNAI: What with differing schedules and unforeseen emergencies, it can occasionally be hard to get your gaming group together for a game or two. To tide you over, here’s a list of the best board game apps currently available, starting with a couple of classics.

Board gaming is a wonderful hobby, but it can also be hard to get people together to play a game, what with cluttered schedules and so on. Or maybe you just want to try a game before you buy it? Either way, there are times when a digital version of a board game is exactly what you need, and that’s why we’re talking about the top ten board games that are available for you to play on your phone or tablet. For convenience’s sake, we’ve limited the list to Android apps; iOS users have a bigger selection to choose from, so let’s talk about the ones that are available for everybody!

Ticket to Ride
We’ve spoken about it before, but Ticket to Ride is still one of the best mobile implementations out there. It’s accessible, it’s fun, and it’s got all the expansions available for purchase once you get tired of the base game.

Lords of Waterdeep
As gateway games go, Lords of Waterdeep gets a lot of love. Luckily, everything that makes it great has been successfully ported over to the app. It’s a perfect introduction to worker-placement games, and well worth your time.

Galaxy Trucker
If you asked me to pick a board game that just wouldn’t work as an app, I’d have certainly thought about Galaxy Trucker. Just goes to show what I know, because Galaxy Trucker is one of the best apps I’ve ever played — somehow, this implementation of a chaotic real-time spaceship-building game is as good as the physical one.

Castles of Burgundy
The latest release on this list, Castles of Burgundy was eagerly awaited for a long time — the original game is one of the best around, but equally one of the most dull-looking. The app spruces things up with a fresh coat of paint but, most importantly, doesn’t mess with that wonderful core Burgundy experience.

Through the Ages
Through the Ages is a four-hour behemoth of a game in cardboard form, and so translating it into an app was always going to be challenging. Somehow, CGE Digital (of Galaxy Trucker fame) pulled it off, turning one of the deepest and most complex gaming experiences out there into something that fits in your pocket and takes a fraction of the time.

Splendor
Splendor has a huge fan following, and luckily its mobile version is suitably excellent. You can play the regular game in the app, or try your hand at a variety of challenges — with special rules and/or objectives in a limited time - that really keep you coming back for more.

Race for the Galaxy
If you held a gun to my head and asked what my favourite app was, I’d say Race for the Galaxy. The original card game is legendarily obtuse, but the app makes picking it up friendlier, and that’s all it needed. There’s a reason this is one of the most critically-acclaimed card games of all time, and it’s amazing as an app.

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