Review: Astraware Boardgames

Score:
87%

Author: Astraware

Version Reviewed: 1.00

Buy Link | Download / Information Link

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So they're finally here. Astraware, in releasing "Astraware Boardgames" onto S60 and UIQ at this week's CTIA conference, have finally made the jump to Symbian OS. Long time developers on the Palm and Windows Mobile platform, they've got a huge reputation in the leisure games market, and their debut on Symbian has been advertised for some time.

The big question is how much slack to give them. Do you look at Astraware Boardgames as if it were a newcomer to the mobile games scene, or do you judge it against the massive back catalogue? The honest answer is that it doesn't matter. Astraware have a strong house style, like any publisher with multiple titles, and this has carried over into the Symbian world - besides, the majority of people looking at the title will have no idea of the company history.

What they'll be looking at is a collection of classic games for a wide age range - the inclusion of Tic Tac Toe and Ludo are going to keep my kids quiet on the next long car trip! Astraware are to be commended for packaging all these up in one sensibly priced application, rather than spreading them out as a number of lesser titles. By having them all together here, in a standard interface, and easily findable on a device (just find one icon, as opposed to working through eight of them), they should make a much bigger splash in the market.

There's also the benefit that people new to the company name aren't going to be taking a chance on some strange gaming concept, or a version of Tetris they're not sure about - these are all classics, well known, and the trial version will be more about deciding to purchase, rather than how do I play this?

I'm not going to step through the rules here, you all know what these apps are (although it's interesting that they've made the decision to go with the American names, rather than the British). What I do want to talk about is the consistent interface and the skill levels.

 

It's drilled into programmers to always follow the style of a device, to make sure that, even in new applications, the buttons do what the user expects, and Astraware have stuck to the Symbian way of things, but in their own inimitable, graphically stylised way. Which means that once you've had a little explore around one of the games, you'll be able to find all the options and menu layouts for every other game, because they're in the same place. It's a subtle touch, but its one that works well and gives the user confidence to forget about the mechanics of playing, and just concentrate on playing.

The skill level is usually the killer point in collections such as this, making or breaking the experience. It's no surprise that the three skill levels on show here should suit all abilities. ‘Easy' has the computer player making the sort of bone-headed fundamental errors that a human would make; ‘Medium' provides a polished and challenging game for the regular user; and ninjas will be happy with the challenge that ‘Hard' provides.

 

 

One or two things did catch my eye, in the S60 version at least. The first was that after installation, the application was placed in a ‘Games' folder off the main screen (not even using an existing 'Games' folder, if one should exist), not into the 'Applications' folder that pretty much every other install uses - it took me a while to think about scrolling down my main menu to actually find the application.

The second, and I'm still not sure if this is a design issue or a deliberate intention, is when you are asked to enter your profile name - you have to steer a cursor around the screen, rather than use the ABC keypad to just enter your name. I suspect this is a leftover from the Palm and Windows code base, but if you've got alternate interfaces on a device, you should use them!

Neither of the above are issues in the UIQ 3 version, which (being stylus-based) is a closer fit to Astraware's home turf, of course. See below for screenshots on a Sony Ericsson P1i.

At the end of the day, there's not much wrong with Astraware Boardgames - and this is where their experience does shine through. A comparatively huge amount of testing, the application is Symbian Signed at launch, there's a very keen eye on presentation and graphics, and most of all it's incredibly playable. That's why many of us have been waiting for Astraware to arrive on our smartphones, and now they're here, it should be obvious to the rest of you why.

Recommended. Without doubt or hesitation.

-- Ewan Spence, April 2008

 (All screens above from a Nokia N95. Screens below are, via Astraware PR, from a Sony Ericsson P1i)

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Reviewed by Ewan Spence at 10:59 UTC, April 1st 2008