New-wave games
How iOS enables new kinds of gaming experiences.
Our physical actions just had a digital consequence: welcome to the cutting edge
We have just created new life. By stacking a geometric eagle atop an angular shark, a beast called a “sheagle” has soared into existence. We know this because as soon as we’d done it, an iPad on the table flashed it up, together with a suitably bizarre picture of the new chimera. Our physical actions just had a digital consequence: welcome to the cutting edge of games.
This game is called Beasts of Balance. Players attempt to build a tower of animals and other strangely shaped pieces atop a platform that recognizes what’s stacked on it, and notifies a nearby iPad via Bluetooth.
This marriage of hard pieces and software allows the game to boast some creative mechanics. Stacking certain shapes, for instance, sets a timer running, which piles pressure on the next person to balance something atop the tower.
Arguably the first big name to enter this arena was board game publisher Fantasy Flight Games. Its tabletop adaptation of the XCOM video game franchise had an app controlling an invading alien menace, which the players had to co-operate to beat. “We were really unsure how the game would resonate with people,” Corey Konieczka, game designer at Fantasy Flight, told us. “But it was a big success and got us thinking about what other games would be suited for digital app integration.”
Konieczka was developing a fully co-operative version of his dungeon exploration game Descent, and he felt using an app to run the game would be a big enhancement. “It allows us to add a real sense of exploration and discovery for the players,” he enthused. “As they explore, all the players get to uncover the secrets together. Everyone is sharing in the victory, or the defeat.” The result was companion app Road to Legend.
Forcing people to split attention between screen and board is a potential weakness for these new hybrid games. Beasts of Balance makes it a virtue: one piece gives you bonus points if you can balance it on the tower with one hand while keeping the other pressed to the touchscreen. For Road to Legend, Corey solved the problem by using the app to oversee particular tasks.
“You are still very much playing a board game. All of the action is focused on the board; you move figures, roll dice,” he explained. “Then the app gets to be the star. Players can decide which quests they want to undertake, when to visit town and how they react to travel encounters. It’s as if one of the heroes has pulled a map out of his backpack and they are planning their travels. Instead of pulling players away from the game, the app helps to draw players deeper into the world.”
Both games also use their digital components to help track the game state, making light work of complex rules. Konieczka feels that this is where the future is. “By exploring different tools and mediums, we are able to provide games that could not exist otherwise,” he said. “This is a new frontier, and uncharted territory is exactly the sort of thing that attracts designers and inspires them to create.”