How To Play Point Salad

I’m not going to go through all of it. Basically it’s an open drafting game. You either take two vegetables or one scoring card. If you take vegetables that is going to cause the scoring cards to change. If you want more thoughts on it and my full review, albeit from a while ago, you can find that here. The player with the most points from their vegetables based off of their scoring cards wins the game.

Simplicity of the Game

Point Salad is not a complex game. For that reason, I think that it helps how the app can work and how quickly you can pick it up and play. I did have the advantage of already knowing the game, but it is an easy game to sit down and learn. Though, the app doesn’t do Point Salad any favors in learning the game.

But the basic mechanisms of the game work really well. It’s a sit down and get playing game that the system can play against you. It doesn’t require too much complex development to where the AI feels like it’s good because it knows more. That means that the AI is not too easy for the game, but also that it feels like playing real people. Sometimes other people just get luckier on their draws.

Learning Point Salad

This is an area, though, where the app is lacking. Most games that I download offer one of two things. Either they integrate the rulebook into the app, or they give you a walk through. Now, as someone who knows most of these games, the integrated rulebook is fine. But I admit it isn’t as nice as a walk through or tutorial level to learn how to play.

Point Salad gives you a link to a PDF download. So, you leave the app. That to me is just weird. What is so hard about taking your rules, again pretty simple rules, and just creating a page in the app that looks like your PDF? I don’t want to leave the app. I close my apps that are open a lot, so what if after I read the PDF, I close and your app? Not a big deal, but not nice. And it doesn’t integrate into being a ruleset that I could look up during the game.

Final Thoughts

I like the app and I think that Point Salad works well as an app. However, I know the game so that gives me an unfair advantage when learning the game in the app. Mainly, Point Salad is such a simple game that I don’t really have to learn it. I already know it, and I don’t even need a refresher on it.

For people getting into the game, I do think that it’s a fairly big negative to not have the rules integrated into the app. So I can’t give it as high marks. And with the AI, I said that it feels like a person. I stand by that, the intelligence level and skill level feel real. The downside, again, is that they feel like someone who knows the game. That means if it’s your first time or first handful of times, it might thump you. Especially if the app is your introduction to drafting games.

Overall, though, I think as people learn it, it is a good game. I haven’t played around with the online mode. I rarely do because it takes a fast game and makes it slower. And I didn’t mention this, but on the app it is very fast, another good feature. I might play online or pass and play eventually, but right now solo against the AI works well.

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The Game

So, like I said, I unboxed Descent: Journeys in the Dark from Fantasy Flight Games. This game has a massive box for a massive amount of terrain and minis, though less minis than you might think. This is going to be a story game which has you on a tactical map, going through scenarios and locations, fighting monsters, learning their weaknesses and progressing the story.

What drew me to this game was that it was a new jumping off point for Descent. If you want to read my initial write-up on the game, you can see what they were talking about with the announcement here. But there were a number of things that interested me. The 3D terrain was cool, but a new app was really interesting. I liked the engine that they’d built the previous Mansions of Madness, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth, Descent 2nd Edition, and Star Wars: Imperial Assault on. But it could have been polished, so I’m hoping that this app will have more polish to it. I haven’t played with it yet.

Board Game Value

But talking about Descent: Journeys in the Dark, led into the topic of value in board games. And I talked about this in a few ways, but one of the biggest is will a board game retain value. For example, I have a lot of campaign games. Will I play those games multiple times, I doubt it for a lot of them but maybe. I think with Gloomhaven I might play it again, but who knows. Others, I know I won’t like Sword & Sorcery. The question is can I sell it for what I paid for it?

But more than that, what games offer good value in what you are getting with them? Something like Descent: Journeys in the Dark, are you getting the “stuff” value that you might get form a Kickstarter like Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread or Chronicles of Drunagor? And what makes the value of those two better than, say, a cheaper game like Earthborne Rangers?

But also how much do you think about the value of what you are getting? Is that something you factor into a game that you buy or a crowdfunding that you back?

The Drink

So I had another Old Fashioned, not that different than normal. However, this one was made with Japanese whiskey. Also something that’s not that odd, but I talked a little bit about how Suntory Whiskey and in particular their Toki whiskey is a fairly common one in Japan. From people who have visited Japan it seems like it’s the common one used for mixed drink.

Upcoming Streams:

8/12 – Aeon’s End Legacy Game 5 8 PM Central

8/18 – Aeon’s End Legacy Game 6 8 PM Central

8/23 – A Top 10 List 8:30 PM Central

I was thinking for the Top 10 list that I might do the Top 10 games that I’m likely wrong about. These are games that either I love though they have flaws or games that I don’t like but a lot of other people do like them. What is it about them that I like better or that maybe I should like better in the games. Let me know if you think that topic sounds interesting.

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The Game

Railroad Ink Challenge is basically an implementation of Railroad Ink by Horrible Guild. In the app, they don’t have the expansions for it, yet, but they do give you a way to play the game, and then if you want, challenge friends to see if they can better your score with the same rolls.

Railroad Ink is a roll and write game where you are trying to connect routes across a map. At spots on all the edges are either road connections or rail connections. You try and connect as many of these together as you can by filling out the grid between with roads and rails and stations. The stations allow you to transition from one type of transit to another. At the end, you get points for how much you’ve connected, if you’ve gone through the middle and various other things, like placing stations in towns, goals you’ve completed, or losing points for rail or road that deadend into nothing.

I haven’t done a full review of Railroad Ink, the game yet. But I have played it a number of times. You can see my Beyond the Box Cover first thoughts over here.

What Doesn’t Work

I am going to give them some of a pass on things that don’t work well in the app, because, well, it’s extremely new. But I will say there was one thing that I found frustrating thus far. That was the fact that I couldn’t reset my password. I set-up on the game on my phone, but I also have it for Steam. I wanted both to be in the same login, but what I thought I’d typed as my password on my phone didn’t work on my computer. So I did the reset password, and the token was immediately invalid upon receiving it.

With that said, the rest of the app, and the game play, no major complaints. I think that the navigation could be a bit smoother or at least better worded at times, but that’s about it.

What Works

Firstly, I think this makes the game easier to play. The game does two main things that makes it easier. It shows you where your legal spots to place a die are. In the board game you have to stop and look to try and find every spot. In the app, you select a die and it shows you where you can place it. It doesn’t show you where you should place it, but it gives you the options you have available.

Then, it also shows you how many places along the edge of the map are connected. This gives you an head of how well you are doing and helps you know if something is connected or isn’t. The more you can connect together the more points you score. But also the more that are connected in one group, the more you score. SO it really makes that nice and clear as you go along.

I also really like that it has bonuses on it. When playing vanilla Railroad Ink the game is really about connecting those routes. That is fine, but Railroad Ink Challenge adds more into the game. Trying to build a station at a town to get more points works well. Getting a bonus die by hitting three certain spots, also works so nicely. It gives the game more, well, challenge. And it isn’t like Railroad Ink isn’t a fairly challenging game already, this just adds more.

Final Thoughts

I really like this app. I think it takes an already fun roll and write, and while I still prefer to play games in person, it gives me the same feel. And that is what I want in an app, it should make play easier, and give me the feel of playing the board game. There have been some apps where it almost makes it harder. Railroad Ink Challenge makes it easier and gives you a really nice package to look at as you play the game. If you like roll and writes, this is an app I highly recommend.

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Now, On Tour is a game that I’ve only played in app form but one that I’m interested in getting a physical copy of. It’s a roll and write game where you are trying to plan out the best tour for your band across the United States. You can stop once in each state and to do so, you are putting a number of the states and you are trying to create a string of states where the numbers are increasing. That doesn’t sound too bad, but you have limiting factors as to where you can place those numbers, because you have cards that will determine what region that you can place the numbers, north, south, east or west. Along with that, the numbers can be pretty random. They are off of two ten sided dice, so each round those dice are rolled and you’re placing, if it was a 5 and 8 a 58 and 85 on the board. You can get bonus points if you place one of those numbers in on the city from the card that determines the region and it’s part of your route.

So the app itself, how is it. The App is pretty slick, it allows you to zoom on on the game board, so it works on a phone, it does all the end game scoring for you, though I have noticed that be wrong once, though, only once in 50+ games that I’ve played of it. And it gives you the ability to mark your route between places so that you can keep track of where you want to go and what numbers you need there. So I’ve only played this in the stand alone form because that’s what it was when the app launched. I know that there is some online play, but I haven’t dug into that yet. I like it because it’s so fast to play solo.

I don’t have any major negatives for the game. For me the whole game works slick as an app, and possibly better as an app. Now, obviously I said I haven’t played this in person. But with the scoring of the game, figuring out your longest and best route is not going to be easy. Just because this game, you’re going to have a ton of different options, so while you might know how the end route goes or the start, there are going to be spots where you have similar numbers by each other and circled cities that will give you the bonus points, so figuring out your path through that might be tricky. Now, with that said, I do want to get a physical copy of the game because I like the game a lot so I want to play it with more people.

Overall, if you’re looking for a good time filling app, this one fits the bill. On Tour is an enjoyable game that plays fast on the app. I will say, though, if you don’t like luck based games, this might not be the game for you. The dice rolls, while they are the same for everyone, and the card flips, give this game a high amount or randomness, because you might get the perfect roll but not be able to place the number or numbers where you need based off of the region. Since this isn’t a free app, it’s probably worth noting that before you pick it up. Personally, I like it quite well and it’s one that while I won’t play it all the time, I do always come back to it.

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Ascension is one that I started playing a while ago, but just recently came back to it. Ascension is a pretty straight forward deck building game where you are trying to get the best engine going of buying power and fighting power to get the most honor points. You get honor points by killing monsters during the game, but also then from the cards that you purchase. The game is straight forward and has a nice rotating market that can be frustrating if you don’t get what you want or the market just becomes monsters and you’re just about buying things. On your turn you play out five cards and basically do what they tell you, that is generally adding up attack and purchase power and then using them, but some cards will have special abilities like additional card draw, or they’ll be constructs, cards that go into play permanently and give you some bonus that way. You can find my whole review here.

So let’s talk about the app and how well it works on a phone. Now I’m just doing phone only as I don’t have a tablet that I use for these. The app implementation on the phone is actually really good. The game plays extremely quickly, much quicker than in person. Or at least playing solo on the app does. Pass and play with someone in person does as well, but you can also play it online against other people. The interface is very good and the tutorial gets you up and running fast in the game and the game takes care of some of the extra work for you. Of course you don’t have to shuffle, but negative monster affects, those can run automatically, and it keeps track of your purchase and attack power for you each turn so you don’t have to mentally track that and reminds you if you have any left.

Let’s talk a bit about the AI. I tend to think that it’s just okay. On hard I win most of the time, so a lot of the time when playing it I am more interested in trying out a new strategy to see how that works or to see what score level I can get to. On easy, the AI basically goes all in attack every time, which means that the game goes fast but you don’t really have anyone competing with you for the good cards or combos. I think with adding in some of the expansions, which are additional purchases it could keep the game more fresh and interesting, but I do think the game can get a bit repetitive over time playing against the computer, no matter the level of AI. Now, playing against people online, that’s going to obviously be more engaging in terms of strategy, but obviously takes a considerable amount more time.

Some of the bells and whistles in the game are nice though. You might want to know what constructs your opponents have, you can look at that. You might want to see what you have in your discard you can look at that. But the information isn’t dominating the screen, those are all things that you can look at versus stuff that clutters it up. And you can expand all the cards, so even though I’m playing on a small phone screen, if I need to read what a card says, which I don’t now but did before, I can just hold it down and it’ll pop up for me so I can see it large enough to read.

Overall, the game feels very intuitive in what you are doing. The game play is very fast as you go, so I can probably now get through a game in 10 minutes playing solo against four AI opponents. But, the game does lose some replayability over time against the AI just because their strategy isn’t always the most unique. I don’t think it’s a bad AI and I don’t win every time, more due to luck of the draw than great AI play. But it’s still a fun time to sit down and play fast, and I could easily buy some expansions to make it more diverse in my game play if I really wanted. This is a good app implementation, and if you really wanted you can play it online with friends or as a pass and play as well, which will give you a good representation of the real game. Definitely an app that I’d recommend.

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The reason that this came up is because I just downloaded a new one onto my phone and I was thinking about the various apps that I have where I can play board games. Just quickly listing off some, I have Onirim, Onitama, Ascension, XenoShyft, On Tour, Small World 2, Suburbia, and Silver. And you can get more, there is Scythe, Carcassone, Catan, and really so many others out there as well, some of them better than others. And generally, they are getting better overall.

Now, in the case of a few of those games, Ascension, Onirim, and XenoShyft, you can play the physical game solo, so you really don’t need the app, but for two of those, you can get through a game way faster on the app than in person and it’s a good experience. The last one, not so much. And some people are going to look at games this way and say, why bother if I’m just going to play against the computer, aren’t there always strategies that are going to beat them. Sure, maybe you’ll get to them eventually, but even though I win 90% of the games of Ascension that I play against the computer, it isn’t just a cakewalk always.

But let’s talk a little bit about what makes a good app.

1 – It Needs to Feel Like the Game
The mechanics should be the same, but you don’t need to show me all the upkeep. Small World is an offender of this, where it certainly feels like the game and there’s enough challenge there that it makes me stick with it, though. You want it to feel like you’re playing the game, that means that the visuals are going to remind you of the board game. What you have to do to make it work should feel some like the board game, though hopefully a little bit easier. A good example of this is Ascension where you are pulling cards into your discard and playing cards out in front of you, it’s how you’d actually use them in real life. Compare that to XenoShyft which is a mess of an app and a whole lot of work to get cards to go where you want or to know how to back out of something.

2 – It Should Be Intuitive
I don’t have all the games I have as apps as physical copies. That means, I need the app to teach me the game well. Games like Onirim, Ascension, Small World, and On Tour had good walkthroughs for their games, though, I already knew how to play Small World. But make it so that if I only kind of pay attention to the tutorial, I can understand the basics of what I’m doing. Suburbia is a more complex game, for example, so when I’ve tried to pick it up, it’s been harder to do so. Even going through the tutorial, there’s just more going on than some of the other ones. And because of that complexity, it should walk you through it better. Now, this isn’t something you can see without buying/downloading the game, but if it’s really bad, someone will comment on it, like XenoShyft.

Now, with all of this said, I don’t think app gaming will ever take away from face to face gaming. It’s just more fun to do it face to face for me. But it’s a good thing when social distancing, and you want to play some games that can’t be played solo. Some of these are just solo on your machine, OnTour and Silver are solo only. But others you can do as pass and play but if you can do that you can play a physical copy, and some like Ascension and Small World, you can do online play. That might be a little bit slower, but staying connected through an app to play a game isn’t the end of the world.

What are some of the board games apps that you love? Have you tried many of them, or does it seem taboo? I know that there are some out there, Through the Ages for example, that some people prefer the app because it makes a several hour game versus a much faster game.

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