Lanterns and Lotus Digital Board Games

It’s time once again to take a look at a couple of digital implementations of fun family board games and card games.

With the myriad of board games going digital, we could give a shout out to at least one a week.

But we won’t.

That’s because we choose to be selective in which games we share with you – the ones we really like!

And that goes for both physical and digital board games.

Today we’re taking a look at a couple of light family games from Renegade Game Studios that have been brought to life in digital form by Dire Wolf Digital: Lanterns the Harvest Festival and Lotus.

 

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

We reviewed the physical board game of Lanterns the summer of 2016 and it was released later that year in digital form.

Lanterns is a tile-laying game where players place colorful lantern tiles in a central “lake” area which let them collected colored cards that they can later turn in as sets of cards for points.

It’s a fun and light family board game where all players collect cards on every turn – not just on their own turn. Since players are collecting cards on everyone’s turn, the game flows very quickly. And when playing on a digital devices it really flies by.

We’ll cut right to the chase and let you know the digital implementation is fantastic!

Players can choose to play Multiplayer in Pass and Play mode or Online against friends or in ranked games. Or they can also play Solo against 2-3 AI-controlled players.

For new players, the Tutorial is very well presented and makes learning the game a breeze. Even with our experience playing the physical game, I enjoyed going through the tutorial to get familiar with the interface. Although, the interface is super intuitive and can be figured out pretty easily by just a few taps around the screen.

At the bottom of the screen are the player’s 3 tiles that they can choose to play to the lake on their turn. They can also first rotate a tile by simply tapping on it.

In the physical game players colored colored lantern cards. In the digital version, there’s no such thing as cards. Players collect straight up lanterns!

When a colored tile is played, the color of the side facing a player is the color that player collects – regardless of who’s turn it is. If a side of a newly placed piece matches the color of the adjacent existing tile, the active player also collects that color lantern. So careful placing of tiles is key to collecting the most lanterns along the way.

And in the app, there’s no need to remember what to collect because the app does all the collecting for you. Once a piece is placed, the colored lanterns just shoot out to each player in the game.

Below the tiles, you’ll find the collection of your lanterns.

If you have enough lanterns to make a Dedication, at the start of your turn, a screen will magically appear asking if you’d like to turn in your sets of lanterns for a Dedication and it will highlight your options and show how many points each is worth. Simply tap on your selection and you get the points.

Along the way players can also earn tokens that they can exchange in pairs to convert a lantern of one color for any other color they’d like. Again, this is handled fluidly by the app knowing when you qualify.

And that’s the game in a nutshell.

As far as the app goes, we’ve already spilled the beans. It’s great!

It’s colorful, plays smoothly, has wonderful animations, and is so intuitive.

While playing on a tablet gives a much larger presentation of the playing area because you simply have more screen space, playing on a phone is easy to maneuver. Simply drag left or right to see more of the area and choose where to play your tile.

Plus, since the game is so quick, it’s much easier to just pull out your phone and play a games in a few minutes. Which is great if you’re looking to play something while waiting in line.

It’s also a good game to play with just two players. It’s much easier to set yourself up with multiple card collecting opportunities.

Overall we give big thumbs up for Dire Wolf Digital’s implementation of Lanterns: The Harvest Festival. And for only $4.99 we’d definitely recommend you buy it.

 

Lotus

Lotus is a card game released in 2016 that just arrived on the digital scene at the end of 2017. It’s also a game we haven’t played in its physical form. But we’re happy to get to play the digital version.

The game revolves around placing flower petal cards to a common area to build colorful flowers together.

Doesn’t that sound very Zen-like?

Sure it would be nice and peaceful if you weren’t competing for points with those flowers!

The petal cards come in 5 different types/colors and are used to build flowers of different sizes. For example, the purple flower only takes 3 petals to complete while the pink flower takes 7.

On a turn, players can play perform two actions. The possible actions are: play one or two petal cards to a single flower in the Lotus Garden, add one of their Guardian Insects to an incomplete flower, or discard cards to draw new ones. After their turn, they draw back up to their hand limit from either from the common cards on display or from their personal card deck. All cards drawn from a player’s deck will have icons with their Guardian on them.

Only one type of each flower can be grown at a time in the garden.

When a player places a petal card that completes a flower, it’s determined who has control of that flower. Control is granted to the player with the most Guardian Insects on that flower. The controlling player can choose one of 4 rewards. Then the player who placed the last petal on the completed flower takes all the petal cards which will be worth a point at the end of the game. So a 5-petal card will earn 5 points.

The rewards a player can claim include special powers or 5 points:

• Elder Guardian – The player gets the Elder Guardian of their type which can be used to count as 2 Guardians when determining flower control.
• Enlightened Path – The player’s hand limit is increased to 5 cards.
• Infinite Growth – The player can play 3 or more petals of the same type to a flower for one action.

When a player draws the last card from their player deck, the last game round begins. Every player gets one last turn.

Any incomplete flowers in the garden at the end of the game are claimed by the player whose Guardians have control. The player with the most points wins!

Like Lanterns, Lotus is a colorful game with fanciful animations that all create a great visual experience. And also like Lanterns, we’ve enjoyed playing Lotus over and over.

The game is very simple to play as playing cards and guardians are as simple as dragging. And drawing cards and choosing rewards are just a tap.

But more importantly it’s a fun game to play.

For new players to the game (like us), the Tutorial is fantastic. And you can play through the tutorial whenever you’d like.

The app also includes the rules which are quick to read as well.

Just like with Lanterns, you can choose to play Solo against AI players or in a Multiplayer game as Pass and Play or between friends online or in online ranked games.

The game also has various Challenges at different Levels that you can complete along the way.

The game gets multiple thumbs up from us and is just $4.99 on an app store at your fingers tips.

Have fun playing!