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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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After much deliberation, my fiancée and I bit the bullet and bought an ipad. It was one of those decisions where we knew were going to end up doing it but we wanted to take the time to make sure it wasn’t just an impulse purchase.
And, while we knew that it would have a number of legitimate uses in our lives, we also knew we were really buying it for the toy factor.
For me in particular, the allure of the ipad was the idea of using it as a virtual board gaming platform. I am honestly not that much of a video game player and I only get limited satisfaction out of playing against an AI. However, the idea of an electronic board that took care of all the housework of setting up the board and moving the pieces and shuffling the cards, that was appealing.
After all, it’s one thing to get a game set up on a work night, particularly if I have to get out a table as part of the process. It’s another to be able to just hit a button and not even worry about a table. Yeah, there is definitely something lost in the process but sometimes what you gain will determine if you’re actually going to play.
We also didn’t want to go hog wild on buying games for the ipad. While it’s true that the applications are much cheaper than buying analog copies of the games and they only take up virtual space, neither one of us viewed that as an excuse to recklessly buy anything.
I’ve been trying to curb my game buying habits and become more discriminating. I have tried to stop jumping at bargains and make careful and well-reasoned purchases and I didn’t want getting the ipad to change that.
With that in mind, we bought three games that had gotten good reviews for the implementation and were also games we enjoyed playing. Those games were Ingenious, Small World and Ascension. And, so far, they have all been good fun. I know we’ll get more (Who am I kidding, quite a few more as time goes on) but right now, those are enough to enjoy board games with the ipad.
As I’ve mentioned, it’s not the same as actually playing the analog versions of the games. I would never take a tablet to a game night and say “Here we go, guys” However, for casual gaming around the house, the ipad is letting us get more gaming in and that makes both of us happy.
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