With Kutná Hora’s recent US retail launch and the holidays rapidly approaching, we wanted to share a special surprise with you. Today, we've launched a free web-based companion app for Kutná Hora that works easily on your mobile phone and browser alike. This optional app can help improve the experience for players who find resource tracking too fiddly, and it also has a few interesting features you might want to check out.

At its core, the app’s main function is to simulate the game’s “cardboard computer” resource trackers in a fast, easy to use digital format. It tracks the amount of ore and population, as well as all of the current resource prices from both cardboard computers in one place. Additionally, it shows the current resource production and income for all players. That’s not all, of course.

How it works

To use the companion app with your game, all you have to do is load it up on one device and place it somewhere nearby where all players can see it. At the start of the game, you can pick your guild setup card and choose your combination, and the app learns which players are tied to each guild as gameplay progresses.

Whenever a player increases their income (by constructing a building, a mine, or from another effect), you simply click their name in the app and select the corresponding action in the menu that opens. The app handles the rest, updating all of the resource and economy adjustments. If you’re using the app, you won’t need to use the cardboard computers or the production tracks on your player board.

Note: there are some elements you'll still need to update in the game manually (like increasing taxes, gaining points, and reputation, etc), but the app is designed to handle much of the heavy lifting without detracting from the tabletop experience.

One of the biggest benefits of using the Kutná Hora companion app is that it calculates income for you, which means you don’t have to manually count everything up when preparing to trigger your income action. It’s always available and gives you at a glance information to help you determine what income you can produce at any given moment. This also is super helpful for seeing the immediate effect other players’ actions might have on your income production capabilities turn to turn.

Pretty straightforward, right? But what else does it do?

Two economy modes for different tastes

The app will initially launch with two economy modes. For players who want the base game Kutná Hora experience, the basic economy mode plays exactly like what’s in the box. Easy peasy…it’s the core game minus having to math as much and fiddle with cardboard trackers, if that’s not your thing.

However…if you’re an obsessive planner (like some of us), the new advanced predictable mode might be exactly what you’ve been looking for. This mode lets you see when and how resource prices will change as a result of a building being constructed. Rather than bombard you with a ton of info, it shows you whether the price of a resource will increase in the next 1, 2, 3 or 3+ cards as well as how much the price would decrease when building a particular guild building.

And that’s it (for now, at least). You can check out the companion app right now at kutnahora.czechgames.com ! Let us know what you think.