Editors Note: Carcassonne is a board game where players lay tiles to determine layout and develop many variants for unique game play. It is set in the southern French city of Carcassonne which is famous for its unique Roman and Medieval fortifications. The players develop the area around Carcassonne and deploy their followers on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters, and in the fields. The skill of the players to develop the area will determine who is victorious.
In this Edition of Stories Behind the Apps, we are speaking with Ben Goevaerts regarding their new app, Carcapp. Hi Ben, please tell us about your app, Carcapp!
Carcapp is a very simple app to guide you while playing the classic board game Carcassonne. The game includes a complicated scoring system. Scoring is a challenge in that you need to manually count and track the points you receive, it detracts from gameplay. This is where Carcapp comes in. It's a simple scoring system where you can select a color, enter the names of the players and add points whenever needed. We're currently planning to expand Carcapp with more features that work great with Carcassonne expansions.
Please describe what Carcapp is and why it’s different from similar apps or competitors?
Other app’s use the standard iOS design which was not intended for Board Games. Carcapp has a custom design that matches perfectly with the original game style.
Where did the inspiration for the design of the Carcapp icon and user interface come from?
The inspiration for design and the app icon came from the box of the board game and manual, while the real inspiration for Carcapp was Carcassonne itself. Personally, I enjoy the game very much because it’s played with many variations and aspects. The tactics used when playing with two people are very different than when playing with three to six people. There is one way to play the game, as can use different tactics with different players. It gets really fun when you are playing with a new player – you need to get to know him as a player and then adapt your own tactics. You have the option of adding many different expansions and the game can be played with many more players. The ability to expand the game and play with many people makes it impossible to get boring! I always try new expansions with friends, which is why we will soon update the app to support more of those expansions.
What software development tools were particularly helpful in creating Carcapp?
Photoshop for the design work and Xcode for coding.
Did you learn any lessons while using them?
The development tools worked great! We had no issues.
Was there anything that went right or wrong with development and release?
Carcapp is a very basic app so everything went quite well. First we completed the design, and then we did the development work. We submitted it to iTunes and Apple released it. It is a paid app, (USD $0.99), and very quickly we had about 150 people who have downloaded it. We are already planning updates as some of our users are already requesting them!
Who is on the team and what are your roles?
Ben Goevaerts
What were you and Pieter doing before you doing in life and work before you started building Carcapp?
Pieter is a student studying graphic design. I have been doing freelance iOS development work. In my spare time I love to make apps for myself.
What are some apps you can’t live without or that inspire you?
The actual Carcassonne App where you actually play the game is amazing. It's design, gameplay and UX is perfect. I wish every app were like that.
Carcassonne is currently available in iOS only – (sorry Android fans), it is currently available in iTunes, available for download.
If you love Carcassonne and want to simplify scoring for you game play, check it out and download it from iTunes.