I was hoping for more of a fantasy version of Railroad Tycoon. The upshot being that what might be a lot of fun playing with a bunch of friends over a table usually stinks big time when adapated as is for the computer.
There are limits to the amount of information that can be cramemd into a board game as well as the sort of interactions that can occur and still have the game be fun. Maybe that would have been interesting 6 years ago, but today what’s the point? After all the reason cards and other abstractions are used in board games is precisely because they are not computer games. The problem is that the computer game is a straightahead conversion of the board game, down to the onscreen shuffling and drawing of event cards, etc. Railroads are cool and building one across a Tolkein-esque landscape sounds like fun. I’ve never played the board game version, but it’s got quite a following and a fascinating premise: build a railroad across a fantasy continent complete with dwarves, trolls, dragons, gold, gems, etc.
Then I downloaded the demo and my excitement vanished pretty quickly. I was excited to learn that Eden Studios is bringning Mayfair’s board game, Rail Empire: Iron Dragon to the computer.
