Austin

This is a rare moment where an electronic version of the board game keeps everything you love about playing the game, and improves by simplifying the obvious trouble of setting up the board and automating card shuffling, etc.

I highly recommend this game and have it on my iPad and iPhone, oftentimes, I will hand my iPad to a friend, play 1 game of Ticket to Ride, and he’s on the app store buying his own version of it. Before I knew what happened, I could play 4 player local wifi/bluetooth games fairly easily.

The only negatives are occasional crashes on my iPad (1st generation) and the online play isn’t as user friendly as the rest of the game.

I should start by emphasizing how much I love Catan, and how much I love iPad/iPhone adaptations of board games.

Unfortunately, this is digital version falls short of the capabilities of the technology and looks like someone designed it in 1994 and it came delivered on 8 Floppy disks.

The best qualities of the iOS version of Catan is that you can play solo. You are able to practice different strategies and see how each might play out. It lets you really explore alot of variety in a quick and easy package. I also enjoyed that I was able to learn the basics of Seafarers without having to purchase the expansion (I ended up buying Seafarers after trying it out.)

I wish more was done to improve the UI, as the controls feel a little clunky at times. Most of all, Improvements should made to the graphics. The art and animations are cheesy and annoying. I’m not saying turn it into a video game. Instead I wish it looked cleaner, more like what Ticket to Ride accomplished in their iOS version.

If you’re a Catan addict, this game is worth the money to get a little practice in your down time. If you’re looking for the best board game adaptation on iOS, get Smallworld or Ticket to Ride instead.