MailGamer – Invite a Gamer to Play through Email

Ok, so I have never seen this before, but imagine if you could use email to send out invites for folks to play a short and simple game with you. I am not sure how the concept was started, or who wanted the ability to do such a thing, but it is quite interesting and it does not force a soul to sign and register with anyone to allow them to partake in a little fun.

I’m talking about MailGamer. It’s an app that has two games, Tic Tac Toe and Sea Battleship. You can play each game on your own, pitting yourself against the computer, or you can invite friends to play with you. Note that these friends must be invited through email, so be sure to have their email addresses on hand.

The Tic Tac Toe game comes with a few twists. You can play the traditional 3 by 3 grid or you can play a 4 by 4 grid. I’ve never done 4 by 4, so it was an interesting challenge. You can also play Normal or Blind. In Blind, the computer, or more appropriately, the Robot does not know where you have put your pieces and makes random moves. There are also two different layouts, one that is plain and simple and another that is a little prettier, called the Lovely Design. Game play is the same for both.

In Sea Battleship, you are playing just as you would play the traditional Battleship game. You select a square hoping it hits some seafaring vessel of your opponent’s, and if it hits, it gets exposed. If it’s a miss, it gets marked as such. In this game, you can select Normal and Blind as well. Board sizes come in 5 by 5 or 10 by 10.

If you play by inviting friends via email, they will get a link to your game within the email. All they have to do is tap and play. The game is played from within the email, not in the app. This was a very interesting concept indeed!

Another cool feature is the ability to customize your emails that get sent to invitees. It sure makes a whole lot easier to have a template to shoot out on a dime.

The graphics were simple, but it sure took a long time for the grid in Sea Battleship to render every time I tapped on a square. It was almost as if the game was not working and I had to be very patient to wait and see if it took my tap.

This game was fun to play on my own or with friends. I just thought it was the neatest thing to be able to send my friends a game through email and not force them to have to download an app to play with me.

Rating: 8/ 10
Price: $0.99