William Chong

I recently got the Settlers of Catan game for my iPod, for those rare moments when I’ve got a couple of minutes spare. For those who don’t know, Settlers is a well-designed and fun board game where you try and build settlements and cities, collect resources and try to beat other players in achieving various objectives (e.g. longest road, biggest army, lots of cities etc.) It’s generally a well-balanced game: there’s a great trading element in the game that allows for lots of interaction between players, and you can get some really close and intense games going at times.

While it’s not as good as playing the board game version with friends, Catan on the iPod is still a well-designed and entertaining game. And at $6 from the App Store it’s much cheaper than buying the original board game, which can sell in shops at $90(!) for a basic set. The graphics and gameplay features pretty much replicate what you can do in the actual board game, and it’s very easy to pick up and play. It offers both single-player (with computer opponents) and multi-player over networks and so on.

Highly recommended for those with iPhones/iPods – you can get it here on Apple’s App Store. If you want there are also online sites where you can give the game a go (e.g. http://games.asobrain.com/)

In the meantime, I’ll keep trading to victory!