To play Groats youll need:
Your iPhone or iPad
A flat level surface with an edge (table, desk, shelf, bar etc.) that your device can slide on
A bit of skill!
These games are loosely based on the old pub game of Shove Hapenny and features a real ‘shove’ mechanic - no having to flip the coins up the board with your finger in this one. You have to give your device a gentle shove to make your groat travel up the board and this can be as fun or frustrating as playing real Shove Hapenny. Just make sure your device can travel a little across the surface.
In all the games the objective is to land the groats in the ‘beds’ (the space between the lines) in order to score points, and any groats landing in a bed will score you points irrespective of the colour. You can shove the groat into a bed directly or get help from collisions with other groats on the board to achieve this.Any groat that lands on or over the side or end lines is lost. There are four modes of play:
Groats - Plays on a single device with players playing from opposite ends of the ‘board’. Each player has three groats and the first to score three points in each of the five beds is the winner.
Match Play - Allows you to play games with other players on-line. This requires that you are logged into Game Center (usually with your iCloud account) and you can either invite friends to play against or request a match against anyone who is also waiting for a game. You can start and play multiple games at the same time as this is a turn based game.
Groatesk - this is a single player ‘blast’ game where the objective is to score as many points as possible. To help (or hinder) there are occasional ‘Joker’ groats placed randomly around the board
Practice: This is a simple practice game for one player in which the three red groats are placed randomly on the board so that you can polish up your skills. This mode also offers you the ability to retry the last turn or reset the practice game from scratch.
Shoving your groat is as easy as:
1 - Drag the groat left or right with your finger until it is in the position you want
2 - Hit the Done button, this now freezes your groat in place horizontally
3 - Give your device a shove, a little for the lower beds or a bit more for the upper ones
4 - The groat now travels up the board, how far and at what angle depending on the shove.
Full rules are include in the App (hit More on the first screen)