Games I Would Buy if Ported to the iPhone

I just bought the Carcassonne app for my iPod Touch, and I really enjoy it.  They did a wonderful job capturing the experience of the physical game for just $5.  Add that to Settlers of Catan (which is quite good, though I find that the computer picks on the human with the robber, and that gets old), and Hive... and three of my favorites are available in my pocket.  Which is damn cool.

I also just bought the original, old-school "Prince of Persia" for a buck.  Hard game!  But cool to re-play.  And Archon!  I loved Archon as a kid, and it's a blast on the iPod.

...Now, mind you, there are some superlative new and original games for the iPhone/iPod.  The best ones I've seen so far are Space Miner (hilarious), Dungeon Hunter, Red Conquest (even if it kicks my ass on the easiest settings, it's brilliant), Spider: the Secret of Bryce Manor (this is bound to be an all-time classic, favorite game), Spirit, Strategery, Tilt to Live, and Orbital.  ...Not to mention the myriad Tower Defense games (which are mostly quite fun).

In all, I haven't been so excited about computer gaming since I was 10, playing on the Intellivision and Commodore 64.  ...Which is to say, it reminds me of one of the happiest times of my life.  I am *loving* this.

Old School Games

There are quite a few old-school C-64/Intellivision games I would love to see properly ported to the iPhone (meaning: updates to the controls, since the iPod doesn't have a normal joystick or keyboard... and possibly updated graphics, as long as they are "true to the original," as Archon managed to be).  For example:

Pools of Radiance / Curse of the Azure Bond / Secret of the Silver Blades / Pools of Darkness


...I would totally play these over again, if they were in my pocket and didn't take 15 minutes to load.

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (Intellivision)

Man, did I love this one.  Simple, you can play it in five minutes, and it's nerve-wracking in a good way.  :)

Seven Cities of Gold

Quiet, interesting game.  I'd love to see a straight port of this, actually, with just a few control updates.  Nothing too fancy.

M.U.L.E. 

...Begging to be put on the iPhone!

Below The Root

Meditative, spiritual adventure game.  Loved roaming among the treetops.

Sid Meir's Pirates!

Another one of those early, easy, open-ended games that you can waste hours in, a little at a time.

More Recent Games

It would be pushing the limits of the technology, and it would require some "dumbing down" of the graphics and possibly a bit of the play, but I'm betting they could do a reasonable job of moving some of the more recent computer games to the iPod.  I'm not expecting to see Half-Life 2 anytime soon, (that would be TOO COOL), but I'm betting they could pull off some playable and enjoyable versions of a few of my better gaming experiences:

Morrowind


This would, of course, require some major dumbing-down and (in particular) much more basic models, but I'm betting they could pull it off.  ...Would it be worth it, monetarily, to but six months' development into it?  Probably not.  So I'm not holding my breath.  But, for the record, I'd definitely put $15 down on this one.

In fact, I'd pay $5 for a "developers log" app that would keep me posted with development news and help pay for it.

Knights of the Old Republic

Again, it would take some work getting the models simplified, but this would be really enjoyable.

Myst / Riven / Etc...

...Why haven't they put these kinds of games on the iPhone already?!  I've seen a few, but they haven't looked particularly good (and those that did I read were really hard).

Board Games


...Of course, there are a *lot* of board games that I would like to see on the iPhone!  Some that jump out at me:

Stratego


There are already a few implementations of this, but they all suck.  We need a nice one.

Cathedral


Simple and effective abstract game, it's one that I really like, and could be elegantly done, quickly played, and enjoyable.

Talisman

Okay, go ahead an laugh, but I really had a lot of fun with this back in college and would like to play mindless dungeon-crawling in perpetuity every now and then.  Maybe it would loose something with out the silly friends and cheap pizza, though.

Quorridor

...Waaaaay too expensive to actually buy, so I'd love to pay $3 for an electronic version.  It's a simple and interesting abstract game.

Actually, there are a whole bunch of games I would pay up to $5 for to be able to play solo:

Arkham Horror, Dominion, Elfenland, Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, Pandemic, Puerto Rico, Runewars (and the new one... RuneLords or something?), Galaxy Trucker (another one that's too expensive for the real thing--and would adapt well), Dune (the '79 version--too hard to find these days), Twilight Imperium (too much of a hassle to play for real!), ZERTZ...


...And, crap, now I'm looking at Board Game Geek again.  More talk about this later.