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Android News Bits: Catan Releases, Catan for Tablet Being Developed, Carcassonne, Neuroshima Hex Coming soon, Wordsmith Weirdness, Hardwood Backgammon for Tegra 2 Coming Soon

Posted by Mark Webb

Android News

05 Jul 2011

Mark Webb

(wwwebb)

United States
Verona
Pennsylvania

• Catan Releases
• Catan for Tablets and Apps we are still waiting for..
• Wordsmith Removed from Android Market - Then Back
• Hardwood Backgammon for Tegra Coming Soon

• Catan Released - July 1
Catan.com's website posts promised Catan would be released "sometime in June". Only hours after June 2011 passes into history, Catan is now available in the Android Market for $4.33

Catan features the original Settlers of Catan gameplay with the Seafarers expansion as in app purchasable content.

According to the App Catalog

Quote:

Features:
- Available languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese
- Initial version optimized for standard and high resolution smartphones
- Original "Settlers of Catan" rule set
- Hot seat multiplayer mode
- Smart computer opponents with individual strategies
- Scrollable game board including zoom option
- Freely combinable game settings
- Situation-related music and sound effects
- Game statistics
- Comprehensive tutorial
- The new scenario "The 4 Islands" and two additional game variants
- Info ticker line: Keep track of your fellow players’ actions while still keeping an eye on the game board
- 3 different graphic sets to choose from: Play with the classic set or select the original graphics from the US or German board game editions

Play mode offer player vs AI or hotseat multiplayer, but no network multiplayer, which has dinged the reviews in the app catalog a bit.
http://www.catan.com/gamenews/313-catan-for-android-now-avai...

Catan $4.33 in Android Market
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.exozet.android.cat...

• Catan for Tablets Announced, Sort Of... - July 1
With the appearance of Catan in the Android Market, some reviews in the market have mentioned that a tablet-based experience of this game is not ideal. That being said, the app description at the very bottom mentions:

Quote:

We are already working on a tablet version.

We will keep our eyes out for this one. This is added to our coming soon list, which includes Carcassonne, that was also expected in June, according to an article on Joystik, and Neuroshima Hex, which has been announced with a generic "this summer".

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.exozet.android.cat...
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/18/carcassonne-coming-in-andr...
http://www.neuroshimahex.com/848/neuroshima-hex-coming-to-an...

• Wordsmith removed from Android Market and then back - June 20 & July 1
Scrabble clone Wordsmith was removed from the Android Market due to a DMCA takedown sent to Google by Hasbro. The developer, Second Breakfast Studios, in response has changed its website to point to the game's availability in the Amazon App Store. What is confusing is that several other Scrabble-like games such as Words with Friends, and Word Feud were not removed.

http://phandroid.com/2011/06/20/wordsmith-disappears-from-an...

Then out of the blue a week or so later, all of a sudden it is back in the Android Market. No explanation, and all of the website links back to the Android Market instead of Amazon.

Wordsmith Free
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.secondbreakfast.ga...

Wordsmith Pro $2.49 in Android Market
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.secondbreakfast.ga...

• Hardwood Backgammon for Tegra processor devices coming soon - May 31
Normally, I wouldn't mentioned releases for some classic games. There are about a dozen each of Chess, Tic Tac Toe, Farkle, and Connect-4 games available for Android. Likewise normally we wouldn't report on a backgammon game, but this one is notable as it is being developed for Android devices containing the dual core NVidia Tegra 2 processor, which included several phones and tablets entering the consumer electronics stores this summer and fall. Hardwood Backgammon, by Silver Creek Entertainment, will feature 3D graphics powered by the Tegra chip. Silver Creek has already made Hardwood Spades and Hardwood Solitare for that chip. This game is yet another with a June deadline that has passed, so we wait and see on this one also.

http://www.droidgamers.com/index.php/game-news/android-game-...-

12 Comments

Tue Jul 5, 2011 6:52 pm

Post Comment

Ryan S

(GibbRS)

United States
Plano
Texas

The Carcassonne android app is out, so you might want to update the post.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.exozet.game.carcas...

As for Catan, I've been playing it way more than I need to be. It's addicting and frustrating at the same time. Still a fantastic game, and I love the Seafarers content, which I've never played before this app.

Posted Tue Jul 5, 2011 9:33 pm
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Steve Wagner

(SVan)

United States
Kenesaw
Nebraska

I believe that Catan will have Network Play in a future update. Not sure if that will be a paid update or not.

Posted Tue Jul 5, 2011 10:27 pm
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Mark Webb

(wwwebb)

United States
Verona
Pennsylvania

GibbRS wrote:

The Carcassonne android app is out, so you might want to update the post.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.exozet.game.carcas...

Thanks to Ryan S(GibbsRS)for the breaking news... I wrote the news post on the 1st, so it could be posted while I am on vacation for the 4th of July holiday. Carcassonne was released yesterday, and is selling in the Android Market for $5.70.

Ryan gave the link, but let me repeat it, along with a scannable QR code
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.exozet.game.carcas...

Posted Wed Jul 6, 2011 12:23 am
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Paul Beasi

(seqiro)

United States
Easthampton
Massachusetts

There is really nothing at all confusing or out of the blue about the saga of Wordsmith. They posted this on June 30:

Quote:

I've got some good news about the Android Market. Hasbro has agreed to withdraw their DMCA takedown notice and are contacting Google. Once it's back in the Market, we will be uploading the latest version of the app with scoring changes and will be deprecating all older versions. So we're at the tail end of all of this. Thanks for your patience. We're almost there...

So like other Scrabble-like games, if you want to keep Hasbro off your back you have to make sure the board layout and tile values are sufficiently different from Scrabble.

Posted Wed Jul 6, 2011 1:29 am
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Kristen Hansen

(KittyPaws9)

United States
Lawrenceville
Georgia

Has anyone purchased Catan yet? It is getting horrible reviews on the market. Lots of bug issues and the fact that you have to spend another $5 for campaign mode.

Posted Wed Jul 6, 2011 6:33 am
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Jonathan Smith

(Cinulph)

United Kingdom
Darlington
Durham

Purchased Catan - tried to install it on 2 Android devices (T-Mobile UK Hero running 2.1 and an Archos101T running 2.2) and most of the buttons don't work (or require 10s of seconds to respond); the keyboard doesn't come up when needed and drag and drop doesn't work. So haven't even managed to get into a game yet.

Posted Wed Jul 6, 2011 6:41 am
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Matt Musselman

(mussels)

Canada
Burnaby
BC

You know, with the significantly improved iPhone/iPad update for Catan last week, a re-review might be in order for it.

I find it far nicer to look at and more user-friendly than the old version. Lots of tweaks that make a big difference (e.g. seeing all the development cards and buildable items rather than having to scroll through them).

Posted Wed Jul 6, 2011 5:42 pm
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Ryan S

(GibbRS)

United States
Plano
Texas

KittyPaws9 wrote:

Has anyone purchased Catan yet? It is getting horrible reviews on the market. Lots of bug issues and the fact that you have to spend another $5 for campaign mode.

I have both Catan and Carcassonne on my Motorola Droid 2. Catan is definitely a buggy game at the moment.

Here are some bugs I've seen:
1.) It sometimes freezes on me if I get a call during the middle of a game, or I dock my phone in it's cradle. When I try to go back into the game I just get a blank screen. I have to use a task killer app to kill the running instance of Catan before it'll start working normally.
2.) Sometimes the game just resets, and it only seems to auto-save every few turns, so you'll lose a bit of the game when it resumes.
3.) If you try to do things too quickly in the game, such as opening another menu while one is still closing, it'll sometimes glitch on you and won't let you close the menus or open new ones.
4.) One time the menu button was just gone, and I had no way to restore it. I had to hit the Home button on my phone, kill the app, then restart it to keep going.

However, even with the bugs, Catan is still a great game, and I've put a LOT of time into it on my phone. Hopefully they'll update to fix some of these issues.

As for Carcassonne, so far it's worked really well. I haven't had it crash or glitch on me yet. It includes the River II expansion, but unfortunately it doesn't look like it'll let you get any additional expansions, at least not yet. I'd love to have Traders & Builders in the app, as well as some other expansions.

Edited Wed Jul 6, 2011 8:14 pm
Posted Wed Jul 6, 2011 8:13 pm
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Thomas Thery

(dragfly)

Hi, it is good to hear that Board Games are coming to Android.

I have just bought Carcassonne and it is rather slow on HTC Hero (the scrolling is not smooth and the GUI is not very responsive), but it is still playable.

Posted Sun Jul 10, 2011 6:38 pm
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Guru Cube

(Guru Cube)

England
Horsham

I've picked up Catan. Disappointed you don't get the Campaign unless you spend more money... but otherwise, a nice implementation with a decent AI (Although don't hold me to that regarding Catan strategy as I am a rather inexperienced Catan player). cool

I'm considering the Carcassonne but a couple of things bug me. Firstly, it's not the cheapest, although I can live with that as I am happy to support good developers. More to the point, and this is a Google market issue, they are charging in dollars for it which means Google market charges me in dollars (unlike Paypal etc. which convert them without charges) and results in an extra ~£1.50 per transaction from my money-grabbing bank. shake

Secondly, the graphics appear to be fairly low quality compared to many new apps (I have a Desire HD) and a few App Market reviews seem to back that up. The UI also seems to be generic rather than tweaked to support the phone's buttons etc. For the money, it would be nice to see these things implemented. Can anyone shed any light? Are the graphics as poor as the screenshots/reviews? And is the UI designed for the phone properly?

Posted Mon Jul 11, 2011 6:15 pm
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Ryan S

(GibbRS)

United States
Plano
Texas

Guru Cube wrote:

The Carcassonne android app is actually really well made. It has a great interface IMHO, and it's really easy to play. It actually looks better than the iphone app to me, as my roommate has it on the iphone. It has different characters than the iphone version, and each one has a certain type of play style, such as going for certain types of features. It doesn't specifically tell you which AI players are more difficult, so you have to experiment as if you were playing against real people, which is kind of neat.

There is no online multiplayer in the android version tho, which is odd because I believe the iphone version supports online gameplay. You can pass & play by setting up multiple human players on the one phone, but it's obviously not as fun as just playing the regular board game.

This is definitely my most played app now. I played a good 35 or 40 games of Catan before Carcassonne came out, but I've been playing Carcassonne almost exclusively now. I went on a 4 day trip over the weekend and I played a few dozen rounds of the game and it just never seems to get old for me. The AI opponents put up a good challenge as well, as I lose maybe 1 out of every 4 or 5 matches.

Posted Mon Jul 11, 2011 11:43 pm
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Guru Cube

(Guru Cube)

England
Horsham

Thanks Ryan.

As it happens, I leave for a 7 day trip today so I bit the bullet and purchased it (as they changed the currency into GBP). I must say, I was pleasantly surprised! The UI is well done a looks great.
(The problem in the app market screenshot is that this game uses original tile graphics. They look scruffy when zoomed out.)

Well worth £3.50.

Edited Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:09 am
Posted Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:08 am
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iOS Board Games

Android News Bits: Catan Releases, Catan for Tablet Being Developed, Carcassonne, Neuroshima Hex Coming soon, Wordsmith Weirdness, Hardwood Backgammon for Tegra 2 Coming Soon

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