This massive redesign is aimed at reorganizing our content to allow us to utilize it better in the future, and present our experience of years in the computer gaming business more readily and conveniently. We're still working out the kinks. I promised some strategy gaming content in this column, although this week's will be a little offbeat. A few weeks ago, Eden Studios released Iron Dragon, which is a port of a boardgame by Mayfair Games dealing with rail-building in a fantasy world. What I thought I'd describe here is my reaction to the news that Iron Dragon had gone digital.
Railroad games are sort of a cult segment of the boardgaming hobby.
Computer gamers are lucky that 1830 was translated to the computer before Avalon Hill went under, as this is probably the best boardgame conversion done ever. There are tons of other boardgames done with the 1830 system, as well as others with the general railroad motif like Railway Rivals and Avalon Hill's ancient Rail Baron. But the Empire Builder system, to which Iron Dragon owes its existence, is one of the most popular and enduring games of all. I have spent many hours playing the board version of Iron Dragon over the past several years, and am delighted to be able to play the game both against the AI and online against the same people I've been challenging since 1995. Unlike some recent boardgame conversion flops like Diplomacy, Iron Dragon manages to do almost everything right in translating the gameplay from the boardgame to the computer screen.