we even had two (confirmed) or three (not sure about it) Samurai tourneys on PT.
long ago 
sometimes it feels sad to be a digital gamer.
so many great lost games.
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We did, youāre absolutely right. That was an app that just did everything right, off the bat. Hey ho. Sic transit etc usw. 
I may just be stroking out, but I feel like this is the first time Iāve even heard of Samurai.
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Letās not forget Carcassonne among the golden standard of async, and among the first to do it, including custom sounds, turn names in notifications, seamless turn based/real-time transition, chats, everythingā¦
I wish Samurai was still in the AppStoreā¦fond memories of it.
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Carc was been let down by the death of GameCenter, and adding new friends is now a bit clunky and unintuitive. The gold standard has tarnished a bit.*
*yes i know gold doesnāt tarnish. Metaphors, eh.
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Agreed, but Iām willing to give some leeway to the developers who relied on third party servers like GameCenter that then eliminate acted support. Carc is manageable, thankfully, and some developers like Digidiced have managed to make GameCenter logins work for them.
Oh I see. Didnāt know that, because having all my friends already there I never noticed.
TM does have a sync and itās not bad right now.
Could be better (Telling you which game you have a turn in would be nice!) but itās miles ahead of how it was on Steam.
Among the Stars was also async, I think.
I stopped playing it because of that game-breaking bug when the one room (Canāt remember which one) kept scoring points instead of the one-time point gain.
Yeah, Among The Stars was asynchronous, as was Cubloās Brass, but it did use some weird system where your ID was your actual email. Ah well, still better than some systems, though I suppose privacy could be a concern.
At the risk of repeating myself ā¦ Iām consistently amazed that asynchronous multiplayer is way worse now than it was in 2010.
Iām simplifying when I say this, but it seemed like a lot of titles just let GameCenter do most of the lifting back then, or least used GameCenter as a useful tool for things like user IDs or whatever. And most games seemed to work just fine ā youād see the red badge, youād take your turn, youād close the app and move on.
But these last few years ā¦ blech. Everyone seems to be trying something different, weāre having to use āfriend codesā and other nonsense just to find each other, most online lobbies seem to filled with tumbleweeds, etc.
Personally, Iāve given up on all but the most reliable, consistent designs (Ascension, Star Realms, RftG all come to mind). I havenāt even bothered to attempt an asynchronous game with most titles released in the last 2-3 years. It just seems like work.
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there have been some updates and bug-fixes since then for Among The Stars.
i think we should try it again?
Was it the matchmaking that turned us off? Been so long since I fired it up I forgetā¦
There is a new digital CCG on the App Store called Teppen that is made by Capcom and features many of their famous characters. Normally this would be yawn-inducing at this point but one thing caught my eye - the game is real-time; apparently, you play a card in one of three lanes and it fires off its abilities after a set time. This reminds me of the excellent and shockingly short-lived Assassinās Creed: Recollection. It may ultimately be nothing at all like it, but I may have to give it a try at some point now. If anyone else has any impressions, please let us know.
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Iām up for it
It was one of my first iOS board game apps. I liked it so much I gave the physical game as a gift to my brother-in-law.
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Oh wow, Assassins Creed: Recollection. That was a gem. Canāt believed Ubisoft farted that one up so much. Just let it walk off in to the abyss.
Star Realms app updated today with Frontiers, the 3rd base set. I played a bunch of it in the beta and I think it is a really cool set.
Digging through my old games hot on the heels of the Fluxx announcement, it occurs to me that Summoner Wars could be the greatest board game app that needs a great quality of life adjustment. It is up there with Neuroshima Hex, though at least Summoner Wars still works. A shiny new coat of paint would be a dream come trueā¦just saying @Strangiato could be a miracle worker 
To this day, itās still the most stunning art Iāve ever seen in an iOS game. Hell, I bought it just to look at it ā the fact that it turned out to be a decent game was just a bonus.
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Iāve given Teppen a bit of my time and hereās my impression so far:
-Ugly
-Unintuitive UI
-Almost no instruction how to play.
But at the same time, the real-time mechanic is at least interesting. There is a stupid counter attack rule that keeps the board fairly clear and keeps a single card from dominating. The game flow is often interrupted by instant abilities, which can be played in a Magic-style stack. I donāt have a clue what some of the numbers mean.
Itās off my iPad already, but it could be interesting, I suppose, for anyone looking for a card battler that feels a bit different.
I canāt speak to how free to play (or isnāt).