I’ve put my time in and I can say that Imperial Settlers Roll & Write is…just ok? As an app, it is perfectly functional and looks nice. There is a small progression system where you can unlock new civilizations, which are just variations on the standard score pad. The game itself, though, may be overly-involved for what it is. It is by no means complicated, but is also feels a bit fiddly with just a few too many options how to spend your dice, in my opinion. This is coupled with an incredibly obnoxious worker die that determines how many actions you actually get per round. Yes, there are ways to mitigate bad rolls, but the bottom line is that you could play a game where you get 30 actions or you could play a game where you get 50 actions, and that variance is really frustrating.
The most telling thing, though, is that I have an roll & wrote folder on my phone and I play Quixx and Noch Mal over this all the time. Sometimes a simple genre benefits from simple, quick games.
I’m glad I have the app. The game can be entertaining. But it is also forgettable, or at least it hasn’t got its hooks into me for what it is.
