The Great Mistake? iPad board game adaptation Stalag 17 arrives mysteriously on the App Store

What do they call a mole in Scotland?

How adventurous are you feeling today? Hawk-eyed PT reader dwtheriault spotted a new game that crept onto the App Store this week: Stalag 17, an iPad-only adaptation of the eponymous tabletop card game about planning and executing an escape out of a Nazi POW camp — with online multiplayer to boot. That is weaponized catnip to the average reader of this newspaper, but hang on a second.

This game arrived with no media alert of any kind, the app developer has no other games on the App Store, and the link to the game’s support page in the App Store description lands on a webhost’s holding site. So this is the iOS gaming equivalent of buying some stereo speakers out of the back of a guy’s van in a Ralph’s parking lot at 2am.

I haven’t had time to explore this but DW bravely took the plunge and he reports that the game is good. The concept and theme are fantastic, and the source material has a respectable score on Board Game Geek. So if you’re feeling brave, dive in. Also, if you’re the developer of this thing, I have two pieces of advice for you: 1) sort out your website, and 2) email me.

An aside: of all the myriad things Apple will reject a game for, having a dead support page is apparently not one of them. Odd.

After the jump, a video of BGG playing the physical card game at Essen in 2011.