Conquist

iPad may not be encouraging the same level of innovation in games as iPhone has, but it is slowly proving to be the ideal stomping ground for a number of pre-existing genres such as boardgames.

Conquist has managed to stand out from the crowd of Risk clones by virtue of its native iPad nature, but more realistically for its cheap price tag.

You get what you pay for, though. While the all basics and standard features you'd expect are present, there's a distinct sense that the lower price is meant to lower expectations.

Conquist is a Risk clone, so if you’ve played the classic turn-based war game you know what to expect.

The objective is either to conquer the world in its entirety by swarming people with your massive armies or completing a secret objective. World Dominion mode serves the former, whereas Secret Missions mode the latter.

The rules and territories are identical to the boardgame, with the presentation kept stark and modern, reminiscent of another Risk-a-like, Dominion HD - lots of blacks and a few solid lines of colour.

It’s clear without being particularly attractive, each army represented purely by a number. There’s nothing worse than a boardgame with extraneous animations breaking up the play, so the lack of graphical whizz-bang in this particular situation isn’t unwelcome.

The rules are customisable, so if you’re in the camp that likes infinite re-deployments, set reinforcements depending on the cards, or defenders rolling up to three dice at once you can knock yourself out.

This customisation extends further than just the rules. Made available as a free update, Conquist contains three extra map layouts along with the usual globe – America, Europe (1938), and Atholon - that, importantly, retain the same balance as the original.

Unlike the pass-and-play multiplayer mode found in Dominion HD, Conquist allows for up to five other players (either human or bot) to partake in a quick game of world domination, with each participant getting his or her own section of the board.

Cleverly, secret missions are revealed as a ticker tape, so you can cover and read in pieces – vital for hiding away objectives from prying eyes. It's generally a cool mechanic, too.

Also cool is how it handles attacks. A disk appears allowing the attacker and defender to separately hit the 'roll' button. It can be annoying in single-player that this disk aligns itself with the defender despite bots not needing to press anything.

There’s also no way of customising the bots in terms of difficulty or name, which is a reasonably disappointing omission for those without nearby friends to play. The lack of any online modes - something Dominion HD does well - is a major disappointment.

At 59p/99c, it’s hard to be too bitter about these missing features, but once it returns to the normal price, the lack of multiplayer and bot customisation means that investing in Conquist will be a little riskier than its more expensive peers.