The Dungeons & Dragons board game Lords of Waterdeep has made its way to iOS. With this release, Playdek continues the growing trend of porting popular board game titles to the digital space. Like many other recent interactive entertainment Dungeons & Dragons releases such as Neverwinter, Lords of Waterdeep draws upon the Forgotten Realms universe.
Don’t mistake Lords of Waterdeep for a traditional D&D game, it’s a robust resource-driven strategy title with deep decision making.
There are a lot of benefits to bringing games like Lords of Waterdeep to the digital realm. No pieces to worry about, zero time committed to set up and cleanup, perfect score tracking and never any rules arguments. But there’s something to be said about playing strategy-intensive games on an actual tabletop with friends.
Games of Lords of Waterdeep take place by scoring points, completing quests, and moving agents around a board to complete various actions. The gameplay feels fluid on mobile and Playdek has done an excellent job with the UI and prompts, making the game much accessible and less intimidating for players new to the title. There’s a lengthy tutorial as well, and it does a fairly solid job of teaching players the basics.
While it’s possible to play Lords of Waterdeep with several different varieties of AI, the real game is in multiplayer online play. Players are given a standard ELO ranking to work with, and move up and down in ranks as they play.
One possible aspect players should be aware of going in – Games of Lords of Waterdeep can take a significant amount of time to complete compared to traditional mobile offerings.
Everything can be handled asynchronously so players will generally have a long clock to work with depending on game settings, but be aware that it’s going to be challenging to punch a game out in a few minutes.
The day after launch, Lords of Waterdeep was the number one paid app in the App Store. It’s currently available for $6.99
“We are so thrilled that the market reception for Lords of Waterdeep has been so strong. People are really responding to the game and fans are telling us that they love the fact that they can play the game with a community whenever they want via our online features,” says Joel Goodman, CEO, Playdek. “It’s a community that’s ready for you to play whenever you feel like it.”
