Catan HD Arrives In The App Store For iPad
September 29, 2010
An official remake of The Settlers of Catan first hit the App Store in October 2009 for iPhone, and up until yesterday, iPad owners had been forced to play the iPhone version in 2x mode in order to experience all of the German-style board game goodness. Notice how I said up until yesterday? That's because an iPad-optimized version of the game titled Catan HD is now available in the App Store.
Like the iPhone version, Catan HD sports 19 randomly placed hexagonal tiles and you are tasked with building settlements, cities, and roads on them while gathering resources. Resources can also be traded with other players if you so choose. To win the game, you need to possess a specified number of victory points on your turn, which is done by meeting certain in-game goals.
That’s just the basics, however, as there is a lot more to Catan HD just as there always seems to be with strategic board games, but thankfully the developers have included a full-featured tutorial within the game that should help anyone remotely unfamiliar with it to get the hang of it.
Catan HD also features the original The Settlers of Catan rule set, four-player pass and play multiplayer, intelligent enemy AI, game statistics, optimized graphics, and a revamped UI.
Catan HD for iPad, like Catan for iPhone, is available in the App Store for $4.99. Sure, it seems like a fair deal, but the developers could just as easily have made the original universally compatible since the game lacks anything new besides the iPad-optimized graphics and UI. It may be worthy of purchase if you don't already own the iPhone version, however.