Puerto Rico HD - (by Ravensburger)

[FPE]

Originally Posted by djflippy

Puerto Rico is one of the best board games ever made.

We all agree ... But what about this port?

[andsoitgoes]

Originally Posted by Ravensburger

3. Async: We thought long and hard about this, and decided to stay true to the board game roots of this game and provide a live multi-player experience instead of a delayed turn based approach. This can be seen in the pass-and-play setup as well, where the board will actually turn on the table to orient itself to face where on the table a player is sitting.
!

Honestly, take it from Carcassonne, games like this will lose out on a LOT without having tis as an option.

Trust me, trust us, this is so very important and you're doing a MASSIVE disservice excluding it.

[FPE]

They probably thought too much and got to the most logical and wrong decision. Lck of async is a huge negative for this port.

[LordGek]

I hear one of the strengths of this game is its general lack of a luck factor.

While I do appreciate a game that has a strong skill factor, are any aspects randomized in this game?

I thought I heard there might be some randomization in regards to turn order and plantation crops, is that accurate?

Lastly, watching a video tutorial I was a little confused with how the roles work in the game. The concept of each player needing to choose a role each round for unique advantages is simple enough, but do each of these roles need to be unique from the other players on that round? If Joe picks Captain before me can I still choose to be a Captain as well?

[kevlar x]

No async? no sale.

[CTD]

I am a huge fan of async gameplay, but not all games are well suited to it. I think Puerto Rico would be borderline, especially with 3+ players. Think of every decision point in every role selection - each time the game would pause. This could get very tedious and hard to keep track of?

[abstractgamefreak]

Originally Posted by CTD

I am a huge fan of async gameplay, but not all games are well suited to it. I think Puerto Rico would be borderline, especially with 3+ players. Think of every decision point in every role selection - each time the game would pause. This could get very tedious and hard to keep track of?

100% agree. After getting beyond my initial disappointment about lack of asynch play, I think, with PR it simply would not work. Perhaps more likely with the stripped down card game version San Juan (or, while we're at it, preferably the related Race for the Galaxy). Take Samurai or Ascension; the player action -your 'turn'- in itself is simple, there's no intertwining with other players as in PR and the complexity of what you have to consider in planning your move is nevertheless (and fortunately) limited (not without reason there is the term 'analysis paralysis' amidst boardgamers).
Having said that, I am quite happy with the app as it is; the different AI's should keep you busy for a while. Having known the real thing for many years, I think, it's very attractive and on the same high production level of e.g. Carcassonne (to refer to another german -if much lighter- boardgame) or Samurai.

@TheDukester PR a spreadsheet? I can perfectly understand what you mean, being not a friend of dry micromanagement games myself. I think PR succeeds in doing the tightrope walk between (moderate) economical complexity and keeping the game going. There is a steeper initial learning curve than usual, I admit.

@LordGek while the tutorial is well made, it won't spare the newbie from reading the rules, I'm afraid

If you're still in doubt, whether you'll need an iPad for playing boardgames, apps like that should convince you. Congrats Codito! Would like to see more collaborations like that in the future

[epthegeek]

Originally Posted by soldat7

Bad choice. I'll keep my money and continue to play Carcassonne and Ascension. I hope you reconsider.

I'm on this list as well. Without async multiplayer, I won't be a customer either. I learned my lesson on Ticket To Ride. I love that game, but the hassle of getting distant friends on a schedule to play as the same time is too much of a bother, so we keep playing Carcassone and Scrabble instead and TTR sits unused.

[crunc]

Originally Posted by LordGek

Lastly, watching a video tutorial I was a little confused with how the roles work in the game. The concept of each player needing to choose a role each round for unique advantages is simple enough, but do each of these roles need to be unique from the other players on that round? If Joe picks Captain before me can I still choose to be a Captain as well?

No, you can not, until the next round. The person that goes first in a round rotates, I believe. It's been a while since I played it and I only played it once, but I did like the game. I bought the app last night, but only had time to go partway through the tutorial (I certainly need a refresher).

The game is a bit overwhelming, especially since, and unlike the real game, you can't see all the possible buildings to build at once, AND once they are played, while they are cute little buildings, there is no text to tell you what the building is for. I think there's going to be a LOT of dragging the Question Mark icon onto buildings until you can memorize the look of the different buildings.

From what I recall of the game, I have to agree that this game wouldn't be suited to asynch play. Asynch is good for some games, but you have to realize that it's not good for all games. Slapping it onto a game where it doesn't make sense is not going to make the game better. I also don't think that Ticket to Ride is suited to asynch. Do I play TTR on my iPad as much as I play Ascension or Carcassonne? Nope. But that's fine. I don't need to play it 10 times a day, 5 games at once. I can play it once a week and really enjoy it. I'm really happy to have that game.

It's true that playing with friends requires coordination, but it's very easy to find online games in TTR as there's a very active community, and they are almost always a good time. Occasionally you get somebody who drops out, but at least the game is smart enough to swap in an AI when somebody does that, so it's not a total loss, and I haven't had that happen often anyway. It remains to be seen if the community for this game will be as lively.

[Misguided]

I don't get the demand for asynch in this game at all. Let's say you were playing with 4 people. To get through one round of the game, you would have to cycle through each player 4 times, since whenever any one person chooses a role, everyone has a chance to act. It seems like it would be really tedious. Then again, people want what they want *shrug*

Hey crunc, if you look at the buildings, many actually have little icons that tell what they are. Like the production buildings have the symbol for indigo, sugar, etc and the marketplaces say +1 or +2.