Board games: what they play in IT-offices

In January last year, I did a review of the IT desktop , which turned out to be a post of gifts selection. This year the review is before the New Year, as requested in the comments.

Previously, games from the computer were “ported” to board games, for example, this was the case with Starcraft, Warcraft, Doom, Civilization, Master of Orion, and a bunch of other masterpieces.
')
This year, the situation has radically changed: due to the huge spread of tablets and mobile phones with good support for games, the desktop began to migrate to the Appstore and the Android Market. Under the cut a review of the most interesting pieces of this year, an example of a domestic crowdsourcing project and a traditional small gift to all artists.

Attack to mobile markets!

A search on Appstore shows that there are now more than a hundred different ports of board games (not counting a heap of varieties of identical and auxiliary applications such as the counter of lives or hints by the rules).

It all started with the company Hasbro, producing a bunch of games and toys in America. On the desktop market, it lit up thanks to Monopoly and many more hits. This company was one of the first to enter the mobile market and port games. The first sign was just Monopoly (since at that time many people did it in computer format), the second very unusual thing is Genga in the desktop version. The humor is that the game requires dexterity and the ability to pull out real wooden bars from a real wooden tower. Touch allowed it, and allowed more than cool.

Now on mobile devices, you can play these significant for the desktop market things:

• Skrabl - probably the hit thing of all. There you can put ipad in the center of the table, and with the help of iPhones drag letters.
• Monopoly , and with the network mode, so that you can play on the plane, for example.
• Uno is the second after Monopoly on merchantability in the world of toys, its port was simply predictable.
• Carcassonne and Colonialists - simple strategies, basic desktop versions of which are included in the top strategies in the Russian market.
• Psychedelic Dixit (although it did not take off, because you can only meet players by agreement).
• Ticket to Ride - a very good arrangement of the desktop on the tablet.
• Plus, of course, chess, backgammon, reversi, kalah, go, 4 in a row and many other classic games. I even saw the ports of Mikado (games of Odessa pickpockets such as pods), which are generally incomprehensible how to play without real physical sticks.

Almost all of these games are in our and American top 100 and are selling well. At the same time, as I understand it, they are sold where people already have physical versions of such pieces (in particular, in the USA and Europe, where the culture of the table is almost more important than the culture of reading books). In general, given that they were going to make a film on Monopoly, and on Sea Battle they were already shooting , it becomes clear how popular the topic is with them.

And now the review of IT-gifts

First, of course, see last year . It lists almost all ageless hits, plus there are a few tips on how to make the game yourself from the printer and some kind of mother (in the comments, the alternative art of Kukhandel + our rules). Secondly, below - the pieces that came out this year, which are definitely worth mentioning.

Hive The toy is very famous in the circles of English-speaking mathematicians: a very simple and beautiful strategy, which was repeatedly transferred to computer versions. This year we received a license for its publication in Russia and started selling. The feeling of heavy voiced chips with insects in their hands is very good.


The task is to surround the opponent's queen. Instead of a field, an infinite plane divided into hexagons.

Risk was not included in the last review. This is a global strategy, very much loved by IT people in the 90s. For example, Mark Zuckerberg began his career as a developer not from the comparison service of girls, as many people think, but from the translation of “Risk” into a network version. If you take it, it is better to pay attention to the version where, instead of specific troops, chips are made in the style of infographics: it is at times more convenient.

At the beginning of the year, the long-awaited Pandemic came out - a game about saving the world. It is good because you do not need to compete: the players play against the game, not each other. The task is to rush around the planet and heal various epidemics. Players have different functions: for example, the researcher gets a bonus when searching for a vaccine, the dispatcher knows how to charter anywhere, and the doctor can cure a bunch of patients at once in one fell swoop. Competent contracts, good risk assessment and the ability to coordinate, plus a bit of luck - and you win.


Pandemic

Those who remember the good old Rolemanser website about board role-playing games also remember the “Age of Aquarius” - the national system, which they played on in real life and on forums. This year the second version was released as a new book . Feels and reviews - few people took it to play, but many people took it by nostalgia. The book turned out to be very good, but, unlike the first one, it did not provoke an explosion of activity on the forums.

This year there was an addition to Shakal (a game with a pedigree at Moscow State University), the second Evolution, a continuation to the nightmare of the project manager “Overboard!”, A bunch of new Mafias and many other pieces. Plus, I constantly monitor the traffic from Habr on the subject of purchases and I see that table hockey, table football and Dixit (when it was) became very popular in the IT environment. In general, on the Mosigra there is a special place where garbage is not advised: here is the catalog of gifts “ Habr 's Choice ”.


Go - a game in which humans are better than iron computers.

Crowdsourcing game

A beautiful example of network influence on the market is the Imaginarium toy. The story began like this: there is a fairly popular Dixit, which is published in Europe. The principle of the game is very simple: you need to take a card with a psychedelic drawing, make an association on it and put it on the table. Each of the players looks at their picture cards, finds a suitable association, and also puts it on the table. Then the cards are shuffled, and the players are trying to understand what exactly the master made from this. The stuff is very creative, fun and great for warm friendly meetings.

In Russia, there is an elite community of people who love to play it. At some point, these people understand that they need to make their own game, and begin to develop a project. Network crowdsourcing is involved in drawing pictures: as a result, many artists do the work that is included in the final version. The game is closed with a lid, supplied with a bunch of easter eggs - and it starts up in print, and very quickly, literally in a couple of months from zero to the fresh run. This is how Imaginarium appeared. If interested, an earlier crowdsourcing project of this team looks like this .


Here it is

What is most often in the offices?

There is almost always Dzhenga (she lit up at Lebedev plus in a heap of different offices), there are many places where there is football or hockey on a stand, Yandex seems to have dragged all the strategies from our store near his office, Svintus and the Jackal are regularly visible. After the special edition for Epson, Boom became popular, more often branded for a specific company. Constantly and almost everywhere there is the Mafia of various publications, often with masks (yes, there was an interesting story about these masks). Sometimes “Overboard!” Comes across, less often - Elias and Activi. In general, for this year of games in IT-offices it has become many times more, it is noticeable and very happy.


Jenga

By the way, what desktop do you play in your offices?

Hey, where's my little present?

With those who say the password " Habrahabr " in the shops of Mosigra or write this word in the notes to the order, a small pleasant discount will happen immediately.

The promotion is valid from December 15 to December 25 in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Ufa, Orenburg, Vladivostok, Stavropol, Tyumen, Ulan-Ude, Norilsk, Lipetsk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, Perm, Yaroslavl, Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Omsk , Tver, Tomsk, Voronezh, Tolyatti, Kharkov, Saratov, and even in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, where it is very, very cold. There is a moment: in Moscow, the zerg-rush on stores is already gaining momentum, so the promotion only applies to the online store.

And yes, that spoiler is on top - it is already ready.