Monopoly Zapped

My dearest soul-mate loves games. From snake and ladders to oh-so-complicated computer games, he loves it all. 

Our kids had their first brush with monopoly from the tender age of around 2 plus.

So now, we have an array of board games. From domino to Robinson Crusoe. There's an online board game shop with good service in Singapore, but maybe that's for a later post.

This post is dedicated for Monopoly Zapped, our newest family member. It has reduced kids to tears, as well as elevated them to a whooping joy.

What's that? It's a combination of normal monopoly and iPad/iPhone.

How?

1. Instead of chance or community cards, you'll get to do games, auction, etc on the iPad/iPhone. No more messy or bent cards.

2. Instead of fussing with paper money, each player hold a card which we tap onto iPad/iPhone to charge/collect money. No more calculating everything with the kids arguing in the background. A much welcome relief. But, I wonder how if the card gets damaged. Hope it won't happen so soon.

3. The possibility is limitless. For example, for chance, the player might be required to spin the arrow via device. Something that requires another board on normal monopoly. And the games played allows more player to compete, or even all players. 

4. It allows auction of property. Adding an interesting concept to the game. 

5. Dices and houses are still physical. Not sure whether this is a plus or minus.

All in all, we're very happy with it. 

iPad

Hmmm... I forgot that I haven't wrote anything about iPad.

Anyway, here it is. 

I thought iPad is simply a larger scale iPhone. But, a few days after playing with it, no... I was wrong.

Below are some iPad features and apps that I adores:

1. The larger screen allows us to watch with others. This makes the experience so much more enjoyable. Laughing together amplifies the joy. If course, we can go the extra mile, use Apple TV.

2. Apps in iPad usually pack more functions. You can get things done easier there compared to iPhone. Kids, without doubt, have more and better games. 

3. QuickOffice. I have tried many free apps that allows us to edit MSOffice on iPad. So far, QuickOffice is the most suitable for me. User interface is simple and intuitive, we can upload and download from google docs, etc. Beware  though, documents that are originally created in QuickOffice cannot be edited via normal MSOffice on PC. In a way, it's a one way compatibility. But if the doc is originally created in MSOffice, you can go to and fro. Other two downsides are formulas and data size in a sheet. Only simple formulas are accepted. And, I tried on data 12 columns wide for 1000 rows. It went haywired, failed to save and auto close. Oh... And there is no charting function. Though it seems like lots of downside, it is a good apps. Very useful for mommying. 

4. AXS on mobile... Or something like that. This apps allows us to pay bills by internet banking, just like normal AXS machine. Receipt will be sent to our emails. Plus side, it keeps track of our payment history, easy to check whether we've missed anything.

5. Paper by 53. If you're an occasional doodlers like me, this app is cool. Very easy to use. It is not like other apps which offers many tools combination and sizes. Papers offers a very simple concept. But it is amazing of what we can do, and lots of great artist did, on it.

So there you go, perfunctory acknowledgement of good stuff.