I get the impression most of our games, particularly between more than 4 players are asynchronous. And yeah, it’s very similar to play by mail and (depending on the settings) the time limits are very generous.
It works much like a chess clock, for example “2 turns a day” seems to mean each player gets 36 hours plus an additional 6 hours (to a maximum of 36 hours) each time they play a move.
Most games should be fine on a tablet. I’d guess the ones with a lot going on on the board could be a bit of a pain to see everything.
There are play-along tutorials for many games, but they’re entirely directed, just getting you to click in the appropriate location and explaining what you’re doing (and if you’re lucky why you might want to do that). The tutorials seem to be available for free, even for premium games.
I like async because I don’t have to carve out time to play, and I can have multiple of the same games happening at once.
I play on PC, tablet and phone… And it all works well.
Some games include the fully solo variant, but if they don’t then the hotseat setup is great because you can just two-hand the game to try and grok the rules. I’ve done it for Space Base, Ark Nova, and Beyond the Sun.
My recommendation is to just jump in with Qt3ers. Everyone here has been very tolerant of newbieness to each game, and even shared lots of tips to help me get up to speed
Tangent - which is the appropriate thread to offer board games to sell?
On-topic - Replying more to questions above - premium subscriptions offers integrated video/voice chat.
Otherwise, up to you to coordinate that. Obviously, less relevant for turn-based play.
Surprising, the super busy Ark Nova does work well on phone / tablet. But, for example, Memoir 44 does not work well on my small tablet as the card played overlays the map so one cannot pick units. I’ve not bothered to investigate whether the problem is in the settings of the game or my tablet so … ?
When setting up/creating a new game, there are many options to set - one is to choose a “friendly game” - (I assume this is available to all games…) - From the site: “Friendly mode: no rankings, no time limit per turn, no penalties. Real-time game.”
Dont ask me what it means that a real-time game is set up with no time limit… even if you play/join a normal game, if it is your first time playing, you have the option of requesting additional time to make moves.
One other small thing I learned today. You can go to your preferences in BGA and turn on push notifications. They are browser based notifications, and I’m not sure if they go from device to device yet… but it has worked on my phone and been nicer than the deluge of emails when you have a lot of games going on.
Thanks, it was fun, especially at the end when we were pretty much playing in real time.
This was the first time I ever tried BGA. I have Tabletop Simulator, and the 3D manipulation of pieces drives me crazy. This 2D approach is so much easier, not to mention being able to play on tablet or even (with some difficulty) my phone.
Gratz to @tylertoo, a man who apparently has what it takes to be a top-tier wino! : )
Oooh, we should make it a kind of suggested rule that the winner of a game is announced by one of the non-winners. You know, good sportsmanship and all. And I’m not just saying this because I have an implausible and arguably undeserved lead in my game of Innovation!
