Okay, get your glasses ready...IS IT RANDOM (I know it is by the very nature of the game, but figure I should throw it out there for any long time listeners)?
Oh yeah, I just tossed that in for the drinking game of, "Lord Gek's Wacky Catch Phrases". I have to assume there is 0 stat tracking. Much like my random obsession, I have no idea WHY this is so important to me but it really is.
Well, I can understand why you like Stats tracking ... because I like it, too ... Cacassone like it is the best ... Nevertheless, the cards are everytime different ... the AI is good, the UI is nearly perfect ... so ... just take it ...
Game Impressions It does have some decent stat tracking so I finally grabbed it! Does it have an ELO system as well (somebody said as much at BGG but it must be online only. While there aren't any real "vs. various AI difficulties" like stats, having it track total games played, total wins in each player variation (2, 3, 4), and total VPs won allows me to derive whatever missing stats I was looking for to some degree. If I'd played 60 games and have only 2 wins recorded in 2 player and 0 in all other player configurations...well I then would have PROOF of how badly I suck! Will the game always refer to me as student or is that some sort of achievement/title mechanism at play?
Only in the tutorial. When you play a local game you'll be able to give yourself a proper title (though you won't gets to pick an avatar)
Ahh, just like an episode of STtNG, I had assumed I already left the holodeck when that game started!
Game Impressions I'm really loving the game so far! I think it adds a lot more randomness to what, to some degree, is still a streamlined game of Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico everything but the type of production buildings will come up is fairly set. To me this often felt like this lead to some ideal strategies, kind of like how one would make some ultimate character build in Diablo 2. Here, in San Juan, it really feels like you have to be much more adaptive to what cards you're being offered at the moment. I also love how the game encourages the player to come up with some synergistic card combos (if planning to be a master producer you'll want the Well and Aquaduct). Here is a great overview of both San Juan and its one expansion: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/786738/enders-pictorial-overview-why-i-love-san-juan-an
From what I've read of the game so far it seems like it has almost zero player interaction outside of role selection, and even that is barely player interaction. Async shoul have been easy to implement for this. I'll pick this game up the minute it gets async.
I don't think this was Sage games, no ELO system as all of their others have featured. Ravensburger have a few developers under their belt so not sure who was behind it.
Ah, thanks. I may splurge for this. I wish it had local bluetooth multiplayer, but maybe that will come later?
I know I really like it. A streamlined take on Puerto Rico with a bit more randomness (you can't really stick to an optimized build path as you might in Puerto Rico since you never know which blueprints you'll have to choose from) but still buckets of depth.
I played one game and it's fun. I like it. However I really wish you could zoom in on the cards more on an iPhone or otherwise they made the text larger. Sooo tiny. I'll stick to playing this on the iPad at least until I know all the cards well. For the most part this has a nice interface. The only thing I didn't like was how to get info on roles you have to double tap the small roll icons - you can't double tap the big ones, though perhaps that would be problematic anyway. Not sure.
Crunc is exactly right about this. This has to be near the top of their list (behind async) in terms of future updates. Unless you have the cards memorized (and even then they are hard to see), it makes the game very difficult to play on the Iphone.
Update V 1.1 is live! Yesterday we've relesed a update (V 1.1) with the following new features/bugfixes: New Features as requested by our fans: - Adjustable animation speed via option/pause menue in game - App remembers the setup of previous game session as default - Single tap displays detailed, zoomed view of cards including roles instead of double tap - Game Center avatar used for players' images Bugfixes: - Result screen displayed insantly with no animations after the table had been revisited - Continuing a session does not result in a loss of role cards anymore - Black market goods displayed correctly in case there is only a single hand card left - Timing of tutorial popups fixed Have fun!
Soundtrack now available! If you like the soundtrack of San Juan as much as we do, then head over to San Juan OST on iTunes or San Juan OST on bandcamp and enjoy the enhanced soundtrack.
