Arkham Horror Toolkit

By Julia, in Arkham Horror Second Edition

This is really interesting for me for different reasons. I am a proud Android owner and was going to look at creating an App for myself for Arkham Horror, however with different functionality to that introduced with the new Toolkit iSheep App.

My app had 2, possibly 3 primary functions.

1) To act as a visual reminder of the Monster Limit, Outskirts limit etc whilst playing. This would always be shown.

2) To act as a decision tree reference for all parts of the game. New players could 'tap' through scenarios based on what's going on in the game and the app would ensure that the rules are followed correctly.

3) Was the dice rolling that they stole from me! :oP

May still do this in some limited form if I have time.....though with no App building experience this may be a bridge too far!

clpirate

jhaelen said:

That's exactly the behaviour I'm seeing when I play with the card decks!

This seems like exactly the kind of problem that statistics was designed to solve. That is, at what point can we dismiss the hypothesis that it's simply due to chance that I keep drawing the same cards over and over again when using the app? There's probably a fairly simple stats test for that. I'll have to think about it.

The iOS was the right choice for this. The fact that it can't do EVERYTHING is both a testament to how expansive the boardgame is and that they really did not want to produce the Arkham Horror complete videogame for $2.99. Personally, I miss my iphone more than ever, and I hope to get an ipod touch for this and other apps.

As far as the price goes, a total of about $10 for stuff from EVERY expansion (what is that, about 1000 cards?) is **** near free. I spent about that on the official AH dice.

CPs response on the announcements hopefully cleared up why no droid yet. Hopefully, it will be popular enough to port out.

Who knows, maybe this is the start of an XBox Live or PS3 Network full version of Arkham.

(Yeah, I'm dreaming.)

Is there any more feedback on whether the randomizer is effective or a concern?

For the encounter cards and dice that would be a major issue in purchase for me.

Rob

sepayne7l said:

As far as the price goes, a total of about $10 for stuff from EVERY expansion

$13, specifically.

I, for one, don't like using "Auto-dice rollers" or "'Random' number generators" when playing games. I did it once when everyone forgot their dice for a dnd session, but it just felt...weird. To all of us. Can't comment on the random encounter bits, however :-x But I may lean towards not liking it as much since I play on the floor where there's plenty of room, have a lot of expansions (so it'd cost more), and not being a big fan of electronic "randomizers" in general. But hey! Don't knock it 'til you try it! And I don't have an iPhone, though. But that may change since my birthday happens to be around February 10th...and I have Verizon...

This is a retelling of what just occurred;

"Yay! I've been waiting for this!"

"Oh, iPhone only?" *sets aside sweet new Android phone* *picks up old iPhone*

"Guess I'll just use this then."

A few clicks through the app store later...

"4.0.1 or better? Nooooo!"

Sadly my original iPhone is no longer supported by Apple and only goes up to 3.1.3. (Although I still have 3.0.1 but would be willing to upgrade to 3.1.3 for the AH Toolkit if necessary!)

Any chance the AH Toolkit could be made backward compatible or does it use too much of the later library functionality? (Or maybe it doesn't use any and it would just take a small combobox change in the xcode :) )

I'd take an Android version too... But I'll take it however I can get it. :)

Fenyx said:

This is a retelling of what just occurred;

"Yay! I've been waiting for this!"

"Oh, iPhone only?" *sets aside sweet new Android phone* *picks up old iPhone*

"Guess I'll just use this then."

A few clicks through the app store later...

"4.0.1 or better? Nooooo!"

Sadly my original iPhone is no longer supported by Apple and only goes up to 3.1.3. (Although I still have 3.0.1 but would be willing to upgrade to 3.1.3 for the AH Toolkit if necessary!)

Any chance the AH Toolkit could be made backward compatible or does it use too much of the later library functionality? (Or maybe it doesn't use any and it would just take a small combobox change in the xcode :) )

I'd take an Android version too... But I'll take it however I can get it. :)

Same here.

Saw app, tried to download, failed. Had a rant over on the app forum, retracted comments then found it was only for 2nd gen ipod touch onwards :(

Bad show, thoroughly disappointed.

Oh I'm not disappointed. Quite excited that they are moving in this direction. Augmenting board games with mobile apps will be cool and fun.

They had to choose iPhone or Android first and their reasons for going iPhone are sound. (Although I woulda still gone for Android personally) And Apple makes backwards compatibility painful because they make their money by having people on the upgrade bandwagon.

I'm hoping the FFG people can just tweak something so I (and others) can buy their app but I'll understand if stuff they use simply won't work in an older version.

Fenyx said:

They had to choose iPhone or Android first and their reasons for going iPhone are sound. (Although I woulda still gone for Android personally) And Apple makes backwards compatibility painful because they make their money by having people on the upgrade bandwagon.

pretty sure one heavily weighted reason is that iPhone users are more prone to pay for their applications. market statistics from both systems show that payed software is sold both more and more expensive on iOS compared to Android. so if there's not enough interest and they stop developing for any other market (both android and wp7 i.e.), they'll still have the application on the most profitable one. that's business allrite. nothing strange and most likely not even playing favorites.

A friend and I tried the app out the last time we played. We used it primarily for the encounter cards and it was worked well.

We happened to notice however that the stat sliders for Trish Scarborough are the same as the other investigators, ie SPEED/SNEAK, FIGHT/WILL and LORE/LUCK when they should be FIGHT/SNEAK, LORE/WILL, and SPEED/LUCK.

Other than that, and some bad spelling, the app is fantastic!

I purchased the app and the expansion for Dunwich. Only complaint is:

Why aren't we able to manage multiple investigators? I would really like to use the app in single player but i need to manage 3-4 characters.

Surely we should be able to swipe left and right to choose the investigator and the up and down to see the cards.

PLEASE FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES...make it happen!!!