It's been a while since Pocket-lint exclusively went hands-on with App-Player from Cheatwell Games - back in January at Toy Fair 2011 to be precise - but it's now on sale. Just in time for that lovely Christmas rush.

The concept is great: App-Player is a quiz board game, with pieces and different categories and everything you'd expect, but its major, unique selling point is that it works in tandom with free applications available for iPhone, iPod touch and Android smartphones.

Each application offers a different type of game, and are all drawn from Cheatwell Games existing, conventional board game line-up. There's four available initially, with more to hit the app stores in the future.

Great Big Trivia Quiz is a standard Q&A game, featuring 1,000s of questions on a wide variety of topics; Humm Bug is a family game that asks competitors to hum famous tunes for others to guess; Masquerade is essentially Charades; and Tension asks teams to shout out ten buzzwords or phrases that relate to a given subject, with points scored if they appear on the card/phone screen.

The board itself can be changed depending on which game is being played, and each application will check online every time it's opened in order to download the latest updates or question sets.

Certainly, App-Player is an interesting new way to combine traditional games with new tech: "We’ve been making board games since Trivial Pursuit was first launched and the format has moved on. Families still love to sit around a table and play a game together, but many of the console games and individual apps we see keep families from socially playing together," says Jon Church, founder of Cheatwell Games.

"With the App-Player, we feel we’ve used new technology to bridge this gap and give families the latest quiz questions on anything from the latest football results to the gossip about X Factor."

App-Player is available from online stores such as Play.com, Firebox and Amazon.co.uk, and high street chains like Fenwick. It's priced at £19.99 and, as previously mentioned, the apps are free from both Apple's App Store and Android Market.

Are there any other board games you'd like to see integrated with modern technology? Let us know in the comments below...