Arkham Horror Toolkit Now Available at the iTunes App Store Hot

This is terrific. I've been using an app for location cards for the last few months and it is really a great space/time saver. Kudos to FFG for offering this. I was going to say that $2.99 is a great price for that, but apparently it's $1.99 each for additional big box expansion and $0.99 each for the small boxes, so that'll end up being another $10. Still, assuming it works as well as what I'm currently using, then I'll end up getting everything. Downloading the base app now...

Now I have a reason to want a smartphone. This looks very cool.

No, I take it back, this looks fucking AMAZING! This is a brilliant asset to gaming. KUDOS FFG!

Now to wait for Grud's review.

This is a big surprise.... someone let me know how this is!

It does look pretty awesome but I have to admit I would totally miss the cards and dice. I bought the special Arkham dice too... how could I not use them?

I'm tempted to download it anyway just to support them & because I'm actually nerdy enough to read the cards at work.

Really nice. More details forthcoming... JonJacob, I agree about the dice. I'd rather roll real dice. But it's nice to know you can use this for dice if you really want to or need to (er, your dice all roll under your couch?).

It works great. I think the best way to access the location cards is via the map by tapping on the locations, and apparently that's the only way to access the Other World cards. But I like that when you click on a particular Other World, it will give you a card specific to an applicable color.

I felt like a dummy when I first brought up a location card, and I thought, wait, that's not right! It's missing the other locations! Well duh... this gives you the specific encounter for just that location. One issue with that, though, is that if you click on the Silver Twilight Lodge, it should really give you the Inner Sanctum encounter as well, and it doesn't do that (the Sanctum cards are available through the card screen).

I really like how the investigator tracking works. But I wonder if they can add the ability to increase/decrease Maximum Sanity/Stamina. There's also a little bit of a loss, assuming one or more people at the table are using this app, from not being able to see someone else's investigator at a glance, for an idea of how they're doing with Clues and money and Sanity/Stamina and all that. But Arkham has never been a game where you're that acutely aware of everyone's "stuff", anyway, so I don't think that would matter too much. Hopefully they'll add the ability to track multiple investigators for solo games or to pass between players.

The dice roller seems a little wonky. It's not that useful if you can't choose a number of dice to roll ahead of time... as it is you have to add them one-by-one. What would be nice is if it had little numbers along the side (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and when you press them it'll throw out that many dice, so even if you need 10 dice for combat, you could just press 4, 3 and 3. And also, it won't always roll again if you shake it. It's nice how you can switch between normal, blessed and cursed, and how it tracks the Clues from your investigator and allows you to spend them when rolling. But unless they can make the functionality of that a little more fluid, it's not something I would use. Actually, I don't think I would use that, anyway, as opposed to real dice, but it's nice to know that I could use that if needed.

Another great addition for this would be a searchable rules/FAQ.

Some screenshots:

Sorry - very clever but I couldn't imagine playing the game without rolling the dice from my own shaking, sweating hand and picking a card from a pile and reading it for the current player.

We all know how much you enjoy computer-simulated dice, Tom.

As I said, I agree about the dice, but you're still drawing and reading cards... they just happen to be drawn from a deck located on your iPod instead of on your table. There's no difference whatsoever to the outcome or context of the game. There is no "immersion loss" for me. It's the same game, and for me, the immersion from encounters comes from the text, not the paper it's printed on.

The auto card draw part of this makes it very tempting. I'd probably keep doing all the rest of it (rolling, items, etc) on the board because I like it, but the card decks....

With very limited space, the card feature is the selling point for me.

I'm with Grud it wouldn't diminish the immersion for me at all and more importantly this would probably get the game to the table more often.

So, are the expansions "shuffled" within the base decks when you add them together, or do you have the option of putting the expansion cards "on top" of the base decks? Makes a huge difference if one is trying to play a particular scenario.

Good point. That should be an option for "traveling exhibits". But no, it doesn't offer that currently.

A very handy app. My interest in playing AH again just shot way up. Now all the app needs is the Mythos deck.

That would be good, except it might not work so well for Environments and especially Rumors. Well, actually, as long as there was a button to switch to show the Environment/Rumor, and you could add Clues to the Rumors, then that could work out.

This sounds amazing. I would also only use the cards, but I'm not surethe mythos deck translates well to an electronic medium. A lot of mythos cards have to remain in play and even if the app could accomodate it, I think it would be overly fiddly.

Adding the mythos deck might be the line in the sand that FFG drew. If those were in the app too it would be pretty close to people being able to play the game without buying it. It's reasonably easy to make games just by using BGG and some creativity, but Arkham is a tough one and if they added much more to the app it would suddenly be much easier to do.

I don't think the cards on the app would detract from the theme or sense of immersion you get (a bad reader does that), I just like fondling cards because I'm a fidgety dude, shuffling and flipping are things I actually enjoy. I'd also miss playing with my money or just idly staring at my character card. Since most of my gaming friends don't have iphone's I would often be the only one using it, plus they would each have to pay for the app too...

It's an awesome idea but now that I've slept on it I don't think I'm gonna get it. But there are a ton of things I'd like to see FFG do with iphone apps, hell I could write a blog on it there's so many things I could think of. I'm excited to see what they do next and that is the biggest temptation for downloading it. My 3 bucks can count!!

This is a promising sign of things to come and more proof that FFG is working hard to stay ahead of the bell curve despite what some of it's detractors claim.

SHIT HOT.

This is amazazing. Do you know what kind of setup/teardown time this saves a guy like me that keeps the expansions separated? I was thiiiis close to committing a weekend to the EVERYGAME grind, but now I can just use that for MYTHOS cards and be all set. I am giddy.

This does look awesome. Now if only my wife would let me touch her Ipad...

Huh...wasn't I talking about a theoretical app like this last year?

Great-looking app and it's the kind of progressive product that FFG is uniquely positioned to deliver...everybody in my Hellfire Club group has iDevices, I think we'll definitely use this next time we play.

They just released an update.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1951