Play Settlers of Catan online with your friends
Settlers of Catan is one of the best board games around, and it’s pretty popular. As far as electronic versions of the game are concerned, you have an Android version, an iOS version, but the rest were out of luck – until now.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team announced that it partnered with Bontom Games and created Catan Anytime, built exclusively with HTML 5. Naturally it promotes the latest Internet Explorer version, but any browser with a decent HTML5 support will do.
Catan Anytime is a multiplayer web app: You’ll need to find at least two friends, because it doesn’t set you up with random online opponents nor furnish AI players yet. Catan Anytime works asynchronously, like Words with Friends. You take a turn then your opponents have a set amount of time to take theirs. Because notifications change from device to device, turn notifications are delivered through email.
There are a few nifty modifications to the mechanics of Catan: Microsoft and Bontom Games built-in auto-trade features, so you won’t get queried whether you’ve got any wheat during every single player’s turn. The traditional dice roll mechanism has been simplified, and has been replaced by a sun button. The board full of numbers has been converted into easy-to-understand icons, although Microsoft said it’s adding full official Catan rules — including development cards — in August. In-game chat is furnished by Skype.
Bear in mind that this is still beta, and there are some bugs around and about, especially if you choose to use a different browser than Internet Explorer. But it’s a beautiful game, and you can try it out with your friends, now that the weekend is here. So go ahead and try it out!
Source: Catan Anytime