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6 creative ways that iOS games can improve a Christmas party

Because Christmas isn't fun enough already

6 creative ways that iOS games can improve a Christmas party
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iOS
| Carcassonne

If you're a gamer, Christmas can be a terrible time of year.

The TV is going to be tuned to festive favourites, cutting down console time. Computers will be commandeered for e-cards and e-mails so that everyone can stay in touch.

Worst of all, you're going to have to drag yourself away from screen time to go and talk to actual people at any number of Christmas parties. Ugh.

But this is where mobile gamers get the edge. Because not only is everyone else not going to be hogging your gaming device for other purposes, it can actually be used to enhance the party season. Here's how

As all the board games, ever

Christmas is traditionally seen as a time for board games. Which is odd, considering that board games are amazing all year round. But there you go.

If you're considering shaking some dice and dealing some cards this season, you can do away with expensive, bulky physical copies and just use your iDevice instead.

All the classic family titles like Monopoly have serviceable iOS versions. Or, if you want to play something more fun many of the fantastic new wave of modern board games sweeping the world are also available as apps.

We'd particularly recommend Pandemic and Forbidden Island because they're co-operative games so they can be played during the season of goodwill without fear of bitter arguments over who owes what on Mayfair.

If you can't live without the edge of competition then Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne and Small World 2 strike a fantastic balance of skill and accessibility for all.

As a sanity-saver

Everyone has a smartphone nowadays. And most people can't go more than about five seconds without checking their social media accounts on them.

This is the perfect excuse to fit in some bite-sized gaming if you can't get engrossed in polite chit-chat about Aunt Doris' bunions. If anyone wonders what you're doing, just plead Facebook.

You have to select your games carefully, though, to make sure they're short and not too distracting.

Crossy Road
works well: the vague swipe gestures needed to control it could be interpreted as scrolling through an email. Plus, you can safely press the home button when you're resting between traffic lanes and pretend to be interested in the conversation.

Doug Dug is another title that's great for quick bursts of play for similar reasons. In addition, its high difficulty level means you're unlikely to need to spend long periods engrossed in your mobile.

As the ultimate quiz master

Trivia questions are another common Christmas pastime. But if you've ever compiled a set of fiendish questions that everyone has moaned about for being too hard, you'll know it's often more effort than it's worth.

So let the App Store take the pain for you by downloading one of the many excellent quiz games available. It's not the sort of genre we tend to cover, but rest assured we know what the best ones are.

Try MovieCat 2, which embellishes a standard film quiz formula with everyone's favourite internet meme: kittens. Or if music is more your thing there's the excellent SongPop. For a generic trivia quiz, it's hard to do better than QuizCross.

If your tastes range to something a little more exotic than a mere question and answer session, we urge you to look at Tiny Games. Rather than an actual digital game, this app asks a few questions about your gathering. Then it suggests a party game from its database, all of which were newly designed for the app.

The results range from the commonplace to the bizarre but they all have one thing in common: they're incredible fun.

As a franchise machine

TV this time of year is a parade of blockbuster family films. And nowadays family means something the whole family can enjoy, and not just a movie to shut the kids up while the adults sleep off a liquid lunch.

So if you want to keep them shut up a bit longer, so you can enjoy a bit more liquid, try downloading some popular companion games to the season's films. A lot of them are merely average, but it's a cool way to draw everyone into a bit of gaming with the lure of a franchise they've just enjoyed.

One of the better offerings is Despicable Me: Minion Rush, a frantic endless runner. Or, because everyone knows Angry Birds now, you could try one of the endless parade of Rovio film-tie ins, like Angry Birds: Rio or Angry Birds: Star Wars.

Speaking of which, George Lucas' much loved sci-fi classic is a great place to go looking for games. Top of the tree is Knights of the Old Republic. But if that's too complex for family fun, there are plenty of lesser but still playable titles to be had.

As a DJ

People take gaming music seriously nowadays. So much so that you can queue up the results as an alternative playlist. It's sure to make your party stand out from all those reliant on the same old tedious, awful Christmas "classics".

Take the excellent Machinarium with its rustic, folky sonics for example. The more adventurous may care for the bizarre music to the bizarre World of Goo.

For some peculiar reason, endless runner games seem to be strong candidates in this department. Two older titles on which the gameplay may be getting a little long in the tooth but the soundtrack still sounds fresh are Mirror's Edge and Canabalt. Or there's Whale Trail, with it's music composed by a member of Super Furry Animals.

Whatever you pick, not only will you impress your friends but you'll be left with some top quality games to while away the hangover the following day.

As a conversation piece

Wherever people gather under one roof, you can bet your bottom dollar that at least one will be an evangelist for some technology platform or other. In the age of mobile dominance, Android and iOS are two of the most popular picks.

So if you're itching for a bit of one-upmanship, why not use your shiny new iDevice to annoy Android enthusiasts by preaching its many gaming merits over its robotic rival? It's a great icebreaker, although it many occasionally end up drowning nascent relationships beneath the freezing waters.

If that doesn't get the conversation flowing, you can always compare the virtues of various iterations of the same platform. Like the trade off of convenience versus screen dimensions as you go up from phone to plus, iPad mini and the original tablet itself. At the very least, it should prove an excellent foundation for never-ending size-related double entendres.

Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.