Ha! I remember picking up the old digital version of Axis & Allies that Hasbro Interactive released 20 years ago. The adaptation was mechanically faithful, but screen resolution was limited, and the multiplayer support was subpar.
But by far the best things about that version was the included featurette with an interview with the original designer, and some pictures of the early game prototype. Worth the purchase price just for that.
The new version is pretty good. Repicates the original, since I’ve made 2 turns in the last hour.
Man I played that one too. Good times.
So, I picked up TTA and reinstalled GT on my android tablet. I’m having trouble signing in to my CGE online account, though. I can do it via their web portal, and change my password, etc. But when I try to login via either game, it tells me ‘Login Invalid’. If I try to create a new account, it tells me ‘email already in use’. In their website, it shows that I own GT, but not TTA. Is anyone else having these problems?
So I’m looking at Boardgamearena for some remote game nights. Can people who have used it before let me know how it works in this scenario:
Two couples in two locations real time. It appears we need at least one premium membership, however would we need one premium on both ends?
Basically it appears that having two people in the same location requires a premium account, so would one be sufficient?
I haven’t used Premium for BoardGameArena (although I might pay for it so we can play Clans of Caledonia next week), but I am fairly sure you only need Premium to create a table. So one account should be enough for everyone to play.
I’m looking into this myself. I found the Premium benefits highlights page, and it says:
Create Premium game tables and invite whoever you want (Premium players or not).
and
Play from the same place.
Play with someone using the same Internet connection as you, or even using the same device (‘Hotseat’ mode).
Only one player needs to be Premium to play from the same location as someone else.
If I’m reading that right, one Premium membership should be able to create a four player game with invited non-premium players both local and remote.
So my wife and I tried the Table Top Simulator. We played several games of Sequence and Farkle to see how it would go with some other couples that we play these frequently with.
As @Nesrie said, it’s a game simulator for gamers. It really just gives you the playing surface, cards and tokens / dice and you have to do everything - shuffle, deal one card, click and drag cards to the table top, flip them over, etc.
My wife struggled with table zooming / mouse clicking just right to get one card off the deck, dropping tokens, moving around the game board.
I asked my wife is this a decent option for playing with our friends and she said “No…but maybe in a month if this is still going on”
Thought I’d give our impressions as I look at sequence as an example - this would be a brain dead game to implement fully, but I guess with rights / trademarks, it’s not going to happen.
I did look around for digital representations for other variants that tried to get around the trademark - One Eyed Jack, Jack Foolery, jack off and couldn’t find anything.
We just like to chat / drink and play easy games. Nothing in depth.
We played Raiders of the Lost Sea on steam last night. It’s a fun little worker placement game with a bunch of different ways to score points.
So far my gaming group has played online:
Yeah, TTS is best understood as a physics simulator with some board gaming conventions (decks, dice, pieces, etc) on top. I’d actually say it’s more like a 3D CAD program than a typical 3D game, but understanding the control schemes and conventions of either are a definite leg up on climbing the learning curve. One of the other sites linked above is a better choice because the presentation is easier to understand (a flat 2D board) and the controls are point-and-click. I’d do one of those with a separate chat program for chatter.
There’s also this BGG list, which is not necessarily totally up to date, but can be useful if you’re looking for a specific game:
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/140673/exhaustive-list-board-games-you-can-play-online-fr
This video might provide some ideas:
(Note: Most of the games in here have been mentioned upthread. But I find it useful to see a quick overview of how they look as he goes through them.)
I’m really enjoying Tabletop Simulator, jankiness included. So far I’ve played Lorenzo Il Magnifico, Exceed, Jaipur, and Res Arcana there. They were all positive experiences. I also taught at least one player most of those games when playing. It’s a pretty good format for teaching since you can track hands moving around and stuff. I’ve scheduled a game of Camel Up in TTS later this week with loose scheduling on some other games.
I think Camel Up in particular will be good there, with it’s focus on fiddly movement and stacking a guaranteed comedy generator in TTS. Jaipur was a bit annoying. It had a scripted set up, but the game feels much slower than in person.
Once you get the hang of it, it captures being around the table better for me than the 2D games. There’s more personality in how players interact with it. My incredible fidgitiness, for instance, comes through with my annoying tendency to roll dice while waiting on other people’s turns.
It’s a hard sell, and I totally get it not being for everyone. But I like it better for synchronous play. I’d like to keep my Yucata or Boiteaujeux plays asynchronous, personally.
Played Hanabi on Tabletop Simulator at lunch with people from work. It’s not really a great way to play. Loads of fiddly housekeeping to do, which tends to break concentration. Not ideal in a game about thinking hard and remembering a lot of information. Also the rainbow cards look pretty similar to the green cards which caused some confusion. Still, I imagine we’ll get used to it and the next game will go much better.
Going to try Gloomhaven on Friday. Hopefully any time lost to jank will be gained in quick setup.
The day they implement multiplayer on that, is the day I buy it.
I’m talking about Gloomhaven within Tabletop Simulator, sadly. Having a purpose-built app that handled all the movement rules correctly would be awesome.
Ahhh… never mind. Carry on. But the Steam version looks great.
Oh! Please post back about how it goes! Setup ultimately killed Gloomhaven for me (after about 25 games in). Are you planning on using this mod?
Lazy question: does everyone need the DLC, or just the person hosting the game?
I don’t have first hand experience with the DLC, but according to their website, only the host needs it.