Great Game, Stupid App – Latice Strategy Board Game Review

I revelry purchased the baked dame and love to play it with my family. This app has the same mechanics of course, so on that level it’s still a good game. But the developers of the app decided to over-complicate it by adding all of these “gamification” elements to it, awarding coins, stars and hearts outside the actual game as an enticement to buy Add-On purchases. And the focus on online play makes it impossible to play without an internet connection, so forget playing on the subway or anywhere else without internet. Even the solo “practice” session is poorly designed - the 5-minute game timer puts pressure on what should otherwise be a serene, thoughtful game. Why? To make it more likely that you would lose “hearts” and have to buy more. It’s pretty clear to me that the game was licensed to the app developer without any limits on what they could do, and as result the developers focused on building something that would make them the most money instead of focusing on making a great user experience. What this game needed was an app similar to other games in this class like Carcassonne or Catan. Simple, no bells and whistles, just good solo and local multiplayer action. Sell it for $5 and be done. As it stands, they won’t be getting s dime from me.
Review by w.eatherman on Latice Strategy Board Game.