At the risk of heresy, and because I don't own an iPhone, I was thinking that of all the board games that I've ever played that would actually make an OK computer game, Arkham Horror is it. Don't get me wrong: Generally board games are a lot more interesting to me. I haven't played a video game in years. But the sheer fiddlyness and number of things that you have to remember to keep track of (doom, terror, herald/GOO bonuses to cultists, environmental effects, etc. etc. etc.), combined with how many times I've forgotten something, make me think that a computer would be useful here. I find that the game experience is often secondary to remembering to administer various parts of the board.....admittedly, we haven't played enough games to have it run smoothly. But it's a big investment of time to get a game of AH going, and it doesn't happen all that often, particularly when there are other, simpler games that people want to play. Enough time passes between games that we have to remind ourselves of all the rules every time.
I was thinking that the iPhone app that FFG has on its website is useful to those who have such a device (though initially I was concerned about the un-board-gameification that it implied). Then I thought, "But it should really keep track of things like Environments and monster movement and rumors and effects from GOO cards... oh, and maybe the monster limit and the blights too....and ...." Then I realised that this would in effect be a wholly computerised version of the game. And then I thought, "Would that be terrible?" I remember a version of Magic Cards on the computer that was a decent representation of card play. I also remember when there was a rumour of Talisman being made into a computer game, which might have been interesting, I guess, but I can't see that game being particularly successful on a computer, for the simple reason that it doesn't need a computer to keep track of things. The fun of Talisman is entirely in its social aspect, the "beer and pretzels" ambiance that people have commented on elsewhere. I've played computer chess games that worked well...some games lend themselves to digitisation; I think AH is one of them.
In fact, I think AH would make a stupendous "boardgame on computer" -- the way the game works, with all these little "applications" "running" in the background, it feels almost like it was designed as a computer game. Solo play options would be fun for someone whiling time away. Lots of interesting opportunities for cool animations / transition scenes, sound effects, etc. It could really add to the atmosphere. I don't find rolling dice all that onerous, and so I don't really understand the usefulness of the dice rolling part of the App., but those other managerial aspects of AH could be done by a robot for all I care, and leave me with more time and energy to put into the storytelling/atmospheric/strategic aspects of a great game.
Alternatively, it would be interesting to have miniatures for the monsters, with bases like in Mansions of Madness. You could have little tokens or windows which show the effects that the GOO card has on the cultists, for example: or a little wheel that changes the base colour to blue to show that cultists are flying in this scenario, etc. Some machinery of some sort seems to be called for to keep track of the details. I love the game, but I always feel like the logistics drain my energy (maybe because I own the game and the other players rely on me to remind them of everything). I would definitely buy an App that did all that (I don't have an iPhone, but I would consider buying a little device that was dedicated to these logistical matters). I would even consider playing a computer game version (though the last game I really played with any kind of dedication was probably one of the old King's Quest games from the 1990s).
