iPhone Review: iNetMania
by Carter Dotson
Developer: TechPad Productions
Price: $2.99 (on sale as of publication, may increase in price in future)
Verdict: Pass. There are better board games on the platform, not to mention just more interesting and engaging games to spend your time on this one.
Pros: Concept is unique, supports hotseat multiplayer for up to 4 players, achievement system with unlockables
Cons: Not much interaction with what happens in the game, solely based on luck
It’s funny, really. The first games that we had to play to amuse ourselves were board games. As technology has improved, we’ve drifted away from board games to these fancy electronic games. And now, as some kind of crazy cyclical world event, the internet is now the inspiration for a board game, iNetMania, playable on those pocket wonders, the iPhone and iPod touch. But is this digital version of an old-fashioned board game actually any good?
It can be hard to show an exciting board game screenshot.
iNetMania’s premise is that you’re an internet startup trying to build capital and viewership, and among your competitors (other players), you compete to have the highest score (your cash plus 20 times your visitor count) at the end of the game. You select a Monopoly-style piece from a list of technology-related items like a wireless router and a laptop, and you roll a die to navigate around the board, and the square you land on (or pass, in the case of the Payday square) have different effects. There are positive effect squares that let you draw Spike cards to get more money or visitors, the iNetMania square which has you re-roll to gain additional visitors, and negative affect squares like Slump cards which will take money and/or visitors based on what you draw, and the Stuck square which forces you to roll a 3 or less or pay $50,000, otherwise you’re stuck on that square. There are 2 neutral effect squares – the ones that move you backward and forward 3 squares (there’s one I’ve seen that moves you backwards, but onto a Spike square. Nice.), and the Marketing square. The Marketing square is the most important square on the board, and what really makes this game from being just an entirely auto-pilot experience.
Rolling the die is the most interactive part of the game, unfortunately
See, every time before you roll, if you’re within distance of a Marketing square, you’ll get the option to pay $50,000 for marketing. If you don’t land on the square, you’re just out $50,000. If you land on it and you paid the $50,000, then your visitors double. If you didn’t pay, your visitors are cut in half. This is the only critical decision making in the game and the only effect that you have on the action outside of rolling the die (you actually have a die in a cup that you can control, and it seems like particularly skilled players could manage to work it so that they could control the number that comes out if they drop it straight down, perhaps). Everything else is random luck, and that’s the game’s problem – you’re not really doing much. There’s no real skill involved to playing it, as the only critical decision is whether or not to pay marketing, and later on in the game if you start getting a lot of money then it’s a no-brainer to pay for the marketing as it won’t affect you much if you don’t hit the Marketing square, but it’s a major boon if you do hit it. Now, some games are fun because they are completely random but you at least feel like you have some control over what is happening. iNetMania doesn’t have that feeling at all. Your results in each game will likely vary wildly – I’ve had games where I’d do horrible, and then on the next game I’d win by a wide margin. There’s very little skill involved, just roll the die and see what happens.
Yes, you can unlock a die as an actual piece. Yeah.
Now, maybe you want to play a game where the skill aspect doesn’t matter. It is easy to play this game and succeed without being good at games, sure. And it’s not like your successes or failures at the game are any more joyful or angering because of the luck aspect. No, it’s because there’s a feeling like everything you do, there was nothing you could do about it – there’s little interaction with you and the game besides rolling the die yourself and making the marketing payment decision. You’re not playing a game, you’re just witnessing a series of events based on rules and random luck, and any value that you ascribe to those events is because you think you’re playing a ‘game’. There’s just not much to hook you – I frequently would play the game while posting on Twitter, and often, I’d just forget that I was even playing it. Part of that could also be ascribed to the fact that the game moves at a snail’s pace with computer players – an option to turn off all the piece animations would help, as there’s no real excuse for everything to take so long with computer players. It’s not like there’s any advanced calculation going on to formulate complex strategies. My advice is that if you do play against the computer, only play against one. Three computer opponents just takes too damn long.
It’s hard for me to recommend the game. The mechanics all work fine, there’s just no interaction with what happens. There’s even an achievement system to unlock new pieces based on in-game events, but it’s not like you’re actually achieving anything in the process. The game is $2.99 as of publication, and it’s well done…it’s just not a very active experience and your time will be much better spent on games that actually engage and challenge you.
