Digital board games have a lot going for them – they’re extremely portable, you don’t have to set up the board, you can play online with friends, you don’t have to keep score, and with pass-and-play modes you can even play them in person. What they’re lacking is that sense of touch: the tactile experience of placing pieces, taking tokens, dealing cards. Bop It! The Video Game, a newly announced adaptation of the command-giving ’90s kids toy, promises to take this to its logical extreme.
When the first digital board games were coming out I remember scratching my head: so many people play board games specifically because they don’t want to look at a screen, the whole idea seemed ridiculous. I was missing the point, and nowadays almost all of the best board games now have dedicated digital versions. But with digital Bop It! I am, once again, very confused.
Indie publisher and developer Alliance Games will launch Bop It! The Video Game on September 18, via Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android, PC and Mac. A press release promises a “high-energy video game with pulse-pounding music, dynamic backgrounds, and competitive leaderboards“, plus multiple play modes, including Endless Classic Mode, Extreme Mode (which adds Spin and Flick commands but isn’t available on mobile), and three forms of Local Multiplayer.
I can understand how you adapt Bop It! to a videogame – you represent the Bop It! controller on the screen, the game barks orders, and the player has to click the relevant bit of the gizmo. But I don’t understand why. The point of Bop It! is the lumpy great plastic controller. I don’t know if there ever was a knock-off Bop It! in which you just had to press buttons, but if there was, it obviously didn’t sell as well.
Admittedly, the mobile version will have touch controls, and those could differentiate between a tap and a flick and a drag and a pinch. The Switch you can probably do some funky motion control things with accelerometers. But there’s a PC version, and I can only assume it uses a mouse. There’s already a whole genre of game where you need to make precise mouse clicks to succeed – first person shooters.
I feel bad for going so hard on a project that I haven’t tested yet, and which may well be work for pay – essential for smaller videogame studios to survive in today’s troubled market. So I’ll point out some cool stuff that Alliance Games has published. It owns the studio Zachtronics, pioneering open-ended puzzle game maker probably best known for Opus Magnum and Infinifactory. And among the work it has published for other studios is the out-there indie gem The Norwood Suite.
I’ve asked for a review code of Bop It! the videogame. If it turns out to be remarkably good or utterly risible, expect a follow up feature. If you’ve got fond memories of Bop It! – or catastrophic memories of launching it into nana’s antique crockery – come and share them in Wargamer’s Discord community.
If you’re looking for all ages experiences, check out Wargamer’s guides to the best party board games, and the best family board games.
Source: Wargamer
