31 ms·

How to play board games online with your friends

228 points by joemasilotti 6y ago

mmhsieh 6y ago
it is going to make it harder to cheat at monopoly.
qwerty456127 6y ago
I wish there was something Flash-like, even easier probably, what would let you make multiplayer board games easily. A board game essentially is just a simple set of pictures you move around + a chat + a dice perhaps. This sounds fairly easy to implement.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Look at VASSAL - it's primarily been used for wargaming but modules can be made with lots of different mechanics, and the more recent abilities to build automated rule behavior get better and better.
zentiggr 6y ago
For those with a more wargaming lean, VASSAL is an amazing toolkit. Full Java app, and modules for hundreds of games all the way back to the original version of Tactics from AH. I've personally done a bit of improvements on Fifth Frontier War, from ye olde Traveller universe.
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  Yeah, VASSAL is a good alternative to TTS! I left it out because I'm personally not into war games which feels like it's strength. But I would definitely be open to learning it and adding it to the article.
- mcguire 6y ago
  Note that it only runs under Java 8. But yeah, it's got modules for wargames as well as cards and probably others. It's free, and most mods are too.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
I was hoping this was going to be how to modify boardgames to play with friends via webcam. We played Monopoly, and had good success - one board, setup a ghost player for the remote people. Remote people used parts of a set to keep track of their money and properties. Later several hours. >In my experience, Zoom is the most consistent service and works on almost any device. One person in your group will need a paid subscription if you want to host an event longer than 40 minutes. // We used meet.jit.si, it was free, good sound/video quality and long call time was no problem.
- kickscondor 6y ago
  My group has been doing a similar thing - except that video quality has been to unreliable for some of the more detailed boards (Troyes, Power Grid). We needed the ability to pinch and zoom the board. We’ve been using an app called iPhotoBot to take high res shots every few seconds. These get uploaded to Dropbox. Then there is a web server of a synced folder which builds a page of the images. Server-sent events are used to update the page. It’s kind of clunky to set up, but I can share my code if anyone is interested. I’m also curious if there are better ways to stream high quality photos.
  - joemasilotti 6y ago
    Wow, that sounds pretty cool though! I wonder if there are any video services that offer pinch-to-zoom. An alternative would be to open a video chat in your browser. Then, on a Mac, you can zoom in with your touchpad. But I think zooming on the page in any browser should work, right?
    - antsar 6y ago
      Resolution might be a problem, since you're just looking more closely at the same pixelated full-board video you were already receiving. If the VC software was smart enough to detect your pinch action and send you a cropped feed at higher resolution from the source, that's a different story. Not sure if any existing tools do this.
- 6y ago
ilikepi 6y ago
Tabletopia is another online service for this. They seem to have quite an extensive library.
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  Good call. I initially left it out because it felt too close to TTS. How does it compare?
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    We've played a couple of games in both TTS and Tabletopia. Neither became a favourite. Superficially they are indeed very similar, you're getting a 3D simulated world with the board game in it, and then a clumsy way to interact with that world. We did not find (not sure if any exist) rules enforcement implementations for Tabeltopia. Every game we tried we had to understand and enforce any rules, and the physics engine is arguably an obstacle rather than assistance as it neatly allows you to drop cards where they can't go, flip cards you shouldn't see, resize counters or accidentally stack them when that's not useful.... Big upside to Tabletopia: It runs in browser. If a person in your group has a company laptop that's locked down to do Office and so on, chances are it can't run Steam (and so TTS isn't possible) but it can run Chrome and thus Tabletopia works. Definitely the biggest contrast is to BGA. BGA is the place to go if you want rules enforcement and aren't happy to stick with one game you all enjoy. But you won't get any of the mechanical joy if that's important to you. If you actually enjoy making change with monopoly money, BGA discards that because their rules enforcement just turns the amount of money (cows, glory, mana, whatever) into a number instead. Little wooden cubes become small red squares on the screen that appear exactly where the designer put them, you can't balance them or line them up how you want, because that isn't part of the game rules. Personally I am now spending several hours every single week on a variety of games at BGA and maybe one session of TTS Gloomhaven if we can face it. To me video conferencing isn't essential. We usually run a Hangout for live games, but in practice you care mostly about the voices. It's satisfying to hear another player say "Aw, I wanted that" when you take away an option you suspected they wanted, and it's easy to say "Sorry, Jenny is screaming, back in five" and put the headset down compared to having to type all that with a child screaming.
iso1631 6y ago
After watching an attempt to make Scrabble work [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaXo_i3ktwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaXo_i3ktwM ], I was thinking what games could work via a webcam if all players have the game. Thinking of games I've played recently, Dominion would work. Ticket to Ride wouldn't. On the Underground would, 1960 Making of a President wouldn't. Normal Settlers wouldn't, but the junior version of Settlers would The key thing is not drawing secret information from a shared pool. Dominion works as it's secret information from a non-secrete deck, which can be known by all players -- you just have to ensure to remove the right cards from play. If player A takes a Duchy, player B removes one Duchy from his set from play. With Ticket To Ride there's no way to ensure that you don't get the same tickets on each side - secret information from a common limited source. Normal Settlers would struggle with the soldier cards -- you can draw a soldier, but it could be roadbuilding or year of plenty. Junior settler has the same with coco cards, but those are played immediately so that works. Obvioulsy open games, like Chess, Go, Backgammon, work. Games like Battleships and Guess Who, where there is secret information but no shared ppol would work too (ok you could both be guessing the same character in guess who, but that would be OK)
- wiredfool 6y ago
  An Oracle/proctor would help, to set things up and divide the state up properly.
- taejo 6y ago
  Dominion would indeed work with webcam, because everyone only shuffles their own cards, but you can only play with the cards that everyone has (if one player has an expansion and the others don't, you can't use it). If all of your players already know how to play, I strongly recommend the official Dominion Online [0]! The base game is free, and the expansions are very affordable too ($1.95 for a month with half the expansions [the older ones], or $3.90 for all, no recurring charges, and only one player at the table needs to have bought them). Unfortunately it's not very intuitive as an introduction to the game because you don't get a good feel of where cards are coming from and going to, but once you know the game it's arguably better (because of the instant setup and shuffling, and automatic tracking of effects). [0] https://dominion.games/ https://dominion.games/
Tomte 6y ago
Brettspielwelt is huge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrettspielWelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrettspielWelt I can recommend it, although it's been years s8nce I've played there.
- prodent 6y ago
  Tried last Saturday, and it was completely unplayable. I guess they were under too much load. It took us an hour to just start a session of Wizard, and then we never managed to actually play because it keep throwing us out and showing error messages.
- distances 6y ago
  We tried this, but it just .. didn't work. Massive problems getting a game to launchable mode, and then it just doesn't launch. Games disappearing from the invite list, and joins not registering. I can easily imagine that all could now be caused by overwhelming traffic, but the outcome was no game anyway.
lewich 6y ago
https://tabletopia.com/ https://tabletopia.com/ is not included in blog article, but is worth to try. Their library is huge and games there are very fun to play. Recommended.
- zeeZ 6y ago
  The biggest flaw with this one is the lack of an undo button. Interacting with stacks of cards is sometimes weird, and the physics get wonky, especially with hex tiles that snap to the board, but still don't align properly. It works better the less objects are involved. Playing "Wingspan", putting a card below another with eggs on top is dangerous. Don't even try to play "Dominant Species".
keiferski 6y ago
Reminds me of this cool DIY project to record chess piece moves (on a physical board) to a computer. https://tech.bakkenbaeck.com/post/chessvision https://tech.bakkenbaeck.com/post/chessvision https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613982
bluetidepro 6y ago
> In my experience, Zoom is the most consistent service and works on almost any device. One person in your group will need a paid subscription if you want to host an event longer than 40 minutes. Have to disagree on this, Discord has been a FAR better solution for my group of friends and I with our online game nights. We tried Zoom, Discord, Google Meet/Hangouts, and Discord has, by far, been the best UI/UX/clarity/quality.
- ollerac 6y ago
  The one thing I like about Zoom above Discord is the ability to see people's faces. Discord doesn't have this, right? It's nice to use the mini-layout in Zoom and put it off to the side like the article suggests. I'm still waiting for some guy on Twitter[0] who's working on his own game board simulator to release his 8-bit video conferencing solution. The pixelation gives the perfect feel when you're playing DnD online with friends during a pandemic. [0] https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1245385563697545219 https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1245385563697545219
  - bluetidepro 6y ago
    Discord has video chat, as well: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000982752-Screen-sharing-Video-Calls https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500098275...
    - ollerac 6y ago
      Oh, nice, I was completely unaware of this feature. I must have missed it because it's only available inside private or group DMs, not channels!
      - durzagott 6y ago
        I think it's available in channels now: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041721052-Server-Video https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004172105...
bitexploder 6y ago
Haven’t seen anyone mention tabletop simulator (available on Steam). It won’t be for everyone. I play Magic the Gathering and board games with friends. Many other games are also available with no work. You can play almost any board game with a little elbow grease.
- bluetidepro 6y ago
  > Haven’t seen anyone mention tabletop simulator (available on Steam) It's literally mentioned in the article?
- sunnyam 6y ago
  It's mentioned in the article...
theaeolist 6y ago
Any similar suggestions for card games, especially Poker?
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  I haven't found anything yet, but if I do I'll add it to the article.
  - gotrythis 6y ago
    http://kosmi.io/ http://kosmi.io/
- fonosip 6y ago
  https://ba.net/poker/live/ https://ba.net/poker/live/ https://truco.ba.net https://truco.ba.net for truco or spanish card games
- TecoAndJix 6y ago
  I spent a good portion of my day searching for this yesterday (everything looks very shady). What i really want is a self hosted option but i have not found anything yet.
- avimoondra2 6y ago
  The best ones I've played on are https://www.pokernow.club/ https://www.pokernow.club/ - Poker https://www.trickstercards.com/ https://www.trickstercards.com/ - including Spades, Bridge, Hearts
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  You could try http://playingcards.io/ http://playingcards.io/ It's effectively a 52 card sandbox. You can also invite other players with a unique URL. Each player has their own "hand" private to others. The controls seems a tad clunky but it should work for just about any card game!
itronitron 6y ago
+1 for Tabletop Simulator, one of my children taught themselves Blender in the process of creating and uploading a game for TTS.
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  TTS is a such a blast. I have a group of five friends who play Wingspan every week and the winner gets to flip the table. Such a satisfying experience! Also, secretly making your opponents pieces slightly bigger or smaller can be a fun way to stay occupied between turns.
- jjice 6y ago
  My friends and I have been loving TTS. $20 is a pretty good deal for a sandbox where all the heavy lifting has been done already so you can just have a good time.
mariusz331 6y ago
We're working on an app for social/board games with built in video chat: https://www.cyberspaces.app https://www.cyberspaces.app Current we offer: Boggle (just released yesterday, feedback is especially appreciated) https://www.cyberspaces.app/boggle https://www.cyberspaces.app/boggle Codenames (we call it Cyberterms) https://www.cyberspaces.app/cyberterms https://www.cyberspaces.app/cyberterms Liar's Dice https://www.cyberspaces.app/liarsdice https://www.cyberspaces.app/liarsdice Kings https://www.cyberspaces.app/kings https://www.cyberspaces.app/kings
- mariusz331 6y ago
  Other things to point out: It's free and no signup is required by any of the game participants (just create a room, share link, and enter). If you have a good/bad experience, feel free to reach out: mariusz at cyberspaces dot app
- chrisweekly 6y ago
  Awesome, thanks!! Codenames is one of our gamenight crew's favorites; will def try it out this wknd! :)
  - mariusz331 6y ago
    Of course! We love Codenames too. We are fielding ideas for next week's game so we'd love to hear about the other games your crew plays.
- JohnKacz 6y ago
  Looks good. I'd love to know what stack you're building with and what you're learning. After seeing the readastorytome.com Show HN [0] was using Phoenix LiveView I was considering building a similar app to play spades or 42 as an excuse to learn some things I've been wanting to learn for awhile. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836940
  - mariusz331 6y ago
    Awesome! Building these sort of games is a lot of fun and I recommend it! We think there's a good opportunity right now for games over video chat: folks that are self-isolating need a way to connect with each other and if you provide a fun service for that I think it will be used. We started off using what we knew best: Rails, React and the Twilio Video SDK. We'll introduce other technologies as they are needed to increase our velocity or enable us to build more rich game experiences. Happy to chat more offline: mariusz at cyberspaces dot app
mcv 6y ago
The site in the leading image is not mentioned elsewhere in the article, but it's Dominion, which can be played at https://dominion.games/ https://dominion.games/ (Disclaimer: the online version is developed by a friend of mine. Not the original physical game of course, which is the best-selling game by Donald X. Vaccarino.)
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  Oh, wow... I can't believe I forgot to add that site! I literally used it last night and that photo is of me and my friends.
  - _pastel 6y ago
    I enjoyed that you have a Base Set strategy guide open at the same time as you're playing. Looks like a rough game. Why did you buy the last Cellar to end the game when you were behind?
- yeahboats 6y ago
  I highly recommend people check out Dominion. Having played many years ago on isotropic and then less so when goko/makingfun took over, this implementation is pretty light and quick. The games themselves go pretty fast, and there's enough expansions that every game shouldn't devolve into a solved format. (I say this as a casual player learning the new expansions). You get access to the base game for free, and the pricing model for the expansions is pretty fair in my opinion (~$5/month for all thirteen, ~$2.50/month for half). There's a matchmaker and custom games. Even bots for those who want to play solo.
- _pastel 6y ago
  Is your friend doing okay? The site seems pretty slammed. Looks like they finally got the ratings updater back online after it went down a few weeks ago.
  - mcv 6y ago
    He's doing fine, if a bit lonely, because he can't yet afford to hire anyone to work on it together. Though he has an active online community helping him out. The site had some stability issues when user numbers spiked a couple of weeks ago, but he says he can scale more easily now and isn't afraid if everybody on HN comes to check it out.
not_math 6y ago
There's this Codenames clone [1] that's great, you can play in multiples languages and you don't need to share a screen to play. It's for 4-8 players and it's easy to play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codenames_(board_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codenames_(board_game) [1] https://www.horsepaste.com/ https://www.horsepaste.com/
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  Awesome, thanks for the link! I'm working on an addendum to the article for game-specific sites. This is perfect.
  - akrolsmir 6y ago
    Ah, if you're aggregating links, I've seen some pretty comprehensive Google sheets listing the different online board games to play in quarantine. Here's one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvjiiLul6QFObxBM0DIP--Diq1KtQU https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvjiiLu... Also, plug for my own site https://oneword.games https://oneword.games. It's an implementation of Just One, the 2019 Spiel des Jahres winner. I built it a month ago just to play with my friends; now I'm getting hundreds of daily players and I can't figure out where they're even coming from =P
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kzrdude 6y ago
Colonist.io has been playable and nice (for Settlers of Catan). They too struggle under load.
- mcv 6y ago
  I know from the creator of Dominion Online[0] that he had to upgrade his servers since the start of the Corona crisis. Lots of new users, leading to all sorts of problems. He seems to have things under control now, though. [0] https://dominion.games/ https://dominion.games/
- groggo 6y ago
  Want to try a looser, table-top style version? Email me cebraverde, at gmail.com I was frustrated by the official online Catan and Colonist.io, so I made my own version.
- jvm_ 6y ago
  They have a beta site that was less swamped last time we played. No rankings, but we didn't care.
chadlavi 6y ago
I've used boardgames arena, it's ok but has a very classic German web design feel -- horrible UX that acts like the user is a dummy for needing good UX.
paulgb 6y ago
Between this article and the comments, I'm bookmarking this page as a good list of these games. I'd be remiss if I didn't add my own humble attempt, a Boggle-like game to be played over screen share: https://wordgame.paulbutler.org/ https://wordgame.paulbutler.org/
tln 6y ago
"a tad clunky"? Every single person I've shown boardgamearena.com has commented on the subpar UX. But then we play a few games of Coup and all is good :) https://acquire.tlstyer.com/ https://acquire.tlstyer.com/ is a good implementation of Acquire
- distances 6y ago
  On the other hand, we found boardgamearena.com very, very polished after trying out yucata.de and brettspielwelt.de.
eugenekolo 6y ago
Another addition that I've found really fun is Lords of Waterdeep. The board game version of it is a chore to play due to setup and how massive the board is. The digital version is way more fun as the board game is set up already for you, and not as daunting. Lords of Waterdeep is available on Steam + iOS + Android - it's the exact same game on it them all. Cross platform gameplay works which is really amazing. AI also exists and isn't half bad. Your non-computer using friends/partners can play on their tablets/phones along side friends who have gaming PCs.
tomcooks 6y ago
I use an online shared spreadsheet (like EtherCalc[0], or Google Sheets) to play my turn-based combat boardgame[1] with friends during the covid19 quarantine lockdown. I think it's a lot faster and easier than using roll20 or other online boardgaming platforms, requires no signup nor learning any new shortcut. [0] https://ethercalc.net/ https://ethercalc.net/ [1] https://www.tomcooks.com/projects/snipr/ https://www.tomcooks.com/projects/snipr/
neftaly 6y ago
I've been working on a WebGL toy for building board games. You can share your hash URL and play with someone else. https://beta.probability.nz/ https://beta.probability.nz/
Longwelwind 6y ago
I've been working on a free and open-source online implementation of the board game "A Game of Thrones (Second edition)": https://swordsandravens.net/ https://swordsandravens.net/ The game can be daunting and long (~4 hours), but the gameplay is very cool!
- staz 6y ago
  is it finished and playable?
  - Longwelwind 6y ago
    Yes, it is!
pidg 6y ago
I wish there was a way to do this but with popular/classic board and card games instead. My friends are, for the most part, not board game nerds. They want to play commercially successful games like Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, Uno, etc. We've had a real struggle to find a sensible way of playing them. Eventually we just had one household point a webcam at a physical copy of Trivial Pursuit and everyone else play via Zoom, which was less than ideal.
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  You could try https://skillgamesboard.com https://skillgamesboard.com They offer Chess, Checkers, Reversi, Go, Connect Four, and the like.
- blahedo 6y ago
  boardgamearena supports a whole bunch of classic card (Hearts etc) and board games (Checkers etc).
- astura 6y ago
  Tabletop Simulator (mentioned in TFA) is ideal for that, it can play most if not all of those. We've played Monopoly, Sorry, The Game of Life, Uno, Clue, and Catan as well as your standard card games (hearts, rummy, etc.). We've got a couple "classics" queued up for this weekend too. The first game was getting used to the controls but it was very smooth sailing after that. It's basically a "sandbox" gave that can support, in theory, any board game.
  - amiga_500 6y ago
    Can you give me a brief description of how to play Catan on this? I have a harder problem than just playing against friends. My wife and I, and another couple, all want to play Catan together. I don't want to sit in a different room to my wife. I was considering just using a webcam here and at my friends, having two boards setup and both doing the same moves, so we can all "see" what is going on, and one side looking after the deck, the other the dice.
    - 6y ago
Jsharm 6y ago
I'm surprised there is no mention of jackbox. It's setup to be played by a whole load of friends around the same tv, using their phones as handheld answer devices. We made it work over discord video chat with one person sharing their screen and was a hoot. Quiplash is a lot like cards against humanity and drawful is neat play on pictionary.
- astura 6y ago
  Jackbox has been, by far, the least successful for our social distancing game group.
ollerac 6y ago
A few friends and I invented a board game several years ago and we all thought this pandemic time would be a great opportunity to get back into it. I set up a real time board game maker online, called DoomGrid[0]. It's very basic and just uses Firebase to sync a bunch of game objects across everyone's game board. We also published the rules for our invented game recently[1] (warning, only 70% complete). We've now spent over 10+ hours developing those rules and the story behind them. If you haven't tried inventing a game yet, I'd highly recommend it. It's really fun! I personally enjoy it just as much as actually playing the finished game. And it's very rewarding the play something you crafted from scratch. [0] https://doomgrid.com/ https://doomgrid.com/ [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GBGlrMk4By5IZ28yCqq3vHAouzLk9FitqYkSmoC4SkI/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GBGlrMk4By5IZ28yCqq3vHAo...
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  This looks like a blast! I'll have to share it with my friends this weekend. We always think of new board game ideas but never take them anywhere. DoomGrid could really help.
- polishdude20 6y ago
  A friend and I made a game a few weeks ago and it's also just simply synchronizes the board using a server to store the game state. It's a Codenames clone you can find here http://those.codes http://those.codes
  - ollerac 6y ago
    This looks great. Do you think your friend might add a short paragraph to the home page explaining what this does? Might engender a little more trust. I'm totally gonna use this to play Codenames with my parents-in-law.
  - ipsum2 6y ago
    That's very polished, I like the "draw yourself" animation.
- philsnow 6y ago
kashyapc 6y ago
A few weeks ago I tried Tabletop Simulator with two other friends to play Gloomhaven[+]. I admire the developers that took on such a (positively) complex and rich game as Gloomhaven. But it was a far cry from in-person playing (I realize). It's very much understandable—you just can't replicate that high-definition feeling you get from in-person game, especially from such a rich game. I was 'dejected' (again, that's not the right word) enough that I didn't try Tabletop Simulator anymore. Maybe I should try other games. Man ... do I now wish that I hadn't turned down (with lazy excuses) all those in-person Gloomhaven sessions I was invited to. Live and learn. [+] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  I feel your pain. As fun as online sessions are nothing beats physically picking up a figurine or meeple. I also found Gloomhaven particularly hard to use on TTS. Wingspan, on the other hand, was a joy to play.
  - kashyapc 6y ago
    Thanks, will check out Wingspan. Haven't heard of it before.
- caffeinewriter 6y ago
  There are definitely some games that just don't translate as well to Tabletop Sim, but as far as shared tabletop experiences, TTS blows every other one I've tried out of the water on the widest variety of games. I use it for D&D, Wizards' Academy, and I own about half of the official DLC games.
  - kashyapc 6y ago
    Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't even scratched the surface with TTS.
    - caffeinewriter 6y ago
blakeburch 6y ago
Austin has a local board game Meetup group that's shifted entirely to Tabletop Simulator during this time. It's great and definitely maintains the best feeling of playing a physical board game. I'm surprised that the author didn't mention the hundreds of games that you can download for free in the Steam Workshop as mods. Not all of them work flawlessly, so you have to test things out beforehand. However, the almost unlimited array of options is what makes TTS stand out. We've found that games without hand management tend to work best. Over the past 4 weeks, we've run games like Arkham Horror, Great Western Trail, Terra Mystica, Blood Rage, Caverna, Puerto Rico, Hansa Teutonica, Concordia, Lords of Waterdeep, and Quacks of Quedlinburg.
- mariusz331 6y ago
  This is awesome and gave me a lot of ideas! I'd love it if you checked out this app we're building to play social/board games over video chat. There aren't as many options as Tabletop Simulator but it may still be a good fit for your meetups: https://www.cyberspaces.app https://www.cyberspaces.app
  - fragmede 6y ago
    One feature in tabletop simulator is that it is literally a simulator of a tabletop - which means that the simulated tabletop can be flipped over. At least, I think that’s supposed to be feature!
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  I skipped mentioning the workshop mods because of the huge variation in quality. A follow up post could go through a bunch of mods and recommend some good ones, though!
  - blakeburch 6y ago
    Yeah, that's a pretty meaty topic on its own. If you choose a mod with bad scripting, you're in for a rough ride. I always try to test a game out by myself to make sure everything functions as expected. On the bright side, if anything messes up, you can usually press undo and just manually move the pieces around. :)
jaflo 6y ago
I worked on a multiplayer version of the puzzle card game Set recently with a friend. It uses socket.io to communicate and Svelte for the front end. It’s a lot of fun to play with friends or alone: https://isaset.com/ https://isaset.com/
- seandavidfisher 6y ago
  This is really well done! Love the subtle animations and the ability to pick cards with the keyboard.
  - jaflo 6y ago
    Thank you!
- govg 6y ago
  https://setwithfriends.com https://setwithfriends.com This is an implementation I have played with a bit, works well too!
  - jaflo 6y ago
    I was going to comment that it doesn’t work well on mobile, but it looks like that’s on their todo list: https://github.com/ekzhang/setwithfriends https://github.com/ekzhang/setwithfriends I wasn’t aware of this implementation, thank you for sharing!
seandavidfisher 6y ago
Thanks for sharing! I'll have to try some of those. I've been working on an online Codenames clone as a side project for virtual get-togethers. It is live and playable[0] and requires 4+ players. I'm planning on open-sourcing it as soon as I find the time. It's been a good excuse to practice some Vue.js and Websocket communication and a lot of fun! [0] http://codenames.seafish.io http://codenames.seafish.io
- polishdude20 6y ago
  It's interesting to see other implementations of Codenames! We've made one here http://those.codes http://those.codes
- seandavidfisher 6y ago
  I've since open-sourced this, contributions welcome. https://github.com/seanfisher/codenames https://github.com/seanfisher/codenames
shawndrost 6y ago
Huge recommendation for http://netgames.io http://netgames.io, they have Secret Hitler and Codenames and the UI makes sense.
- cozuya 6y ago
  There's my crap https://secrethitler.io https://secrethitler.io. (because of some poor design decisions its capped for new players at around 250-300, there's also https://private.secrethitler.io https://private.secrethitler.io and https://beta.secrethitler.io https://beta.secrethitler.io as well)
twaldecker 6y ago
Finding good games to play online with friends and family is a difficult task, because you find very much crap. So I appreciate the post. I implemented the games Halma, Mühle and Dame. Don't know the English names. Ui for now is only in German: https://wunderwald.games https://wunderwald.games
- jaflo 6y ago
  I tried Halma briefly and it didn’t seem to enforce rules or play order. Is that by design?
  - twaldecker 6y ago
    Yes, it's by design. It was easier at first but you can "help" new players easier.
jaflo 6y ago
Are there any online versions of the card games Mao, Golf, or Lucky Bastard/Karma? I’ve been considering making some sort of card game simulator that supports those because I haven’t found a good 1) website that 2) works across screen sizes and 3) enforces play order. http://playingcards.io/ http://playingcards.io/ is the closest I have seen.
avimoondra2 6y ago
Here's a great (and growing) list of free or freemium board games online that a friend shared with me! Document version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10iOD7Wy_YU4NmkPU7ZH7YTrq11qJAANjZZ0PAotKhR8/preview?pru=AAABcdDzhlo*0uQs11KuxXOQu3Sowcll0Q https://docs.google.com/document/d/10iOD7Wy_YU4NmkPU7ZH7YTrq... Spreadsheet version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FnsE0E3p_qVugf2Tu6djTV_bHw3oL74P8tWZITsBL4A/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FnsE0E3p_qVugf2Tu6dj...
avimoondra2 6y ago
Recently released[0] a free, online version of a favorite social/party game... it goes by the name of Fishbowl, Salad Bowl, Monikers, or Celebrities. http://fishbowl-game.com/ http://fishbowl-game.com/ The first version was created and tested in ~3 weeks. So far it's been fun and hilarious for groups of friends, family, or coworkers (4 to 10+ players, ages 5+). Also open source[1]. Built with Typescript, React, Material UI, Apollo GraphQL, Hasura, Express, and Postgres; deployed on Render. [0] Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902950 [1] https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl
seeken 6y ago
Currently building a Splendor clone in Phoenix LiveView to teach myself Elixir... I had a rare moment of geek glee last night when I got the reserve-card functionality working, watching the cards disappear from the other screens. Afterwards I think I will do Azul in Blazor as a way of comparing the two frameworks.
Splendor 6y ago
Has anyone found an easy solution for video chats with virtual games? I've tried Hangouts, Meet, Discord, and Zoom but they all seemed incomplete for my requirements. My requirements: - Host can share their screen and video camera at the same time without having to join the meeting from two different devices - Desktop audio and host's audio can be heard by everyone on the call - Gallery view in video chat so everyone can be seen while playing the game
- dddddaviddddd 6y ago
  > Desktop audio and host's audio can be heard by everyone on the call I find the inability to have more than one person 'speaking' at a time the most unnatural thing about videoconferencing. Is there any solution?
- phlamb 6y ago
  I found Skype to be the easiest to use with these requirements. I hosted a Jackbox game and was able to share my screen (and game audio), my webcam (albeit in a smaller view than normal), and could see everyone in a gallery view.
  - Splendor 6y ago
    Thanks. I'll give it a shot.
  - Splendor 6y ago
    I tried Skype and it fell short as well. While sharing my screen I can only see a small floating window that shows 1 participant at a time. I can't see everyone while sharing the game. It was very easy to share my desktop audio while sharing the screen though.
imetatroll 6y ago
I've been working on a vtt for DND5E for the past couple of years. You can text/video chat, create characters, maps and all of the essentials! Please take a look! https://imetatroll.com https://imetatroll.com If you really like what I am doing, I have a twitter account and a patreon account. Thanks!
- ollerac 6y ago
  This looks great. I love the font! A 2 minute screencast overview video showing the interface would go a long way to making me want to sign up.
  - imetatroll 6y ago
    Thank you! I will be working on an introductory video soon :)
  - imetatroll 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCzEAhkVqsU1CFTGDKzR8A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCzEAhkVqsU1CFTGDKzR8A I do have two older videos if you are interested!
    - ollerac 6y ago
      Yeah, I love these! Definitely made me want to give it a try! Maybe embed them both the home page somewhere?
- ollerac 6y ago
  I just tried it out and it was really hard to get started. I couldn't figure out how to edit a game board and there was really little guidance around what to do, like a step 1, step 2, step 3. I had no idea what an "Encounter" sized board was, for example. And the icon buttons were hard to use. I had to hover over them to see what they did and it wasn't easy. Maybe use a tooltip library for those (like tippy.js) or just have the text next to the icons — this would be much more usable. Also, a quick getting started video overview would be awesome. I wasn't sure how to edit a board or see it in perspective. I really like the general interface and feel of it thought. Felt old school and like it's own little world. I was also impressed that you have video and audio chat built in — really, really cool. I hope it gets easier to use, because I think I'd want to try it more!
guptaneil 6y ago
This is a nice list for playing with people already familiar with euro games. If you’re looking for more social games that can be picked up by casual gamers, I’ve been keeping a running list of sites I’ve used at the bottom of https://blog.metamorphium.com/2020/03/19/play-from-home/ https://blog.metamorphium.com/2020/03/19/play-from-home/ The list is focused primarily on games that are good for remote team building, but work well for any casual group. So far, games include Secret Hitler, Codenames, Love Letter, Spyfall, Jackbox, Avalon, One Night Werewolf, and some others. Let me know if you have more links in this category of games!
monksy 6y ago
I wrote about this as well on the 11 April: https://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2020/04/games-that-you-can-play-over-zoom-remotely/ https://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2020/04/games-that-you-... There are more games there that you can play.
afro88 6y ago
My dad is in his late 70s, not good with technology and likes to play scrabble. We used to play a game every week on the weekend. So I thought now would be a good time to download an app to each of our ipads and play online during lockdown. So as it turns out, there is no good easy clean online scrabble game. They're all horrifyingly gamified, "social" with lots of bots and fake accounts (one with bonus forced facebook login) and full of ads to trick you into downloading other things. All features that my poor non-techy dad would get confused and put off by. I was amazed. So does anyone know of a good simple clean way to play scrabble remotely?
- Torwald 6y ago
  you could create board in google docs spreadsheet and create stack of letters via script maybe browser plugin if needed.
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  It's kind of sad, to be honest. The official Scrabble app does exactly what you want, but only for pass-and-play. (At least it did a few years ago when I played.) I wonder if you could set up the game at your house, physically, with a camera pointed bird's eye view. He wouldn't be able to move his pieces, but he might be able to communicate via a video chat?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
RustyRussell 6y ago
We played Pandemic with great success: the other couple had the game too, put all their cards face up so they could find them fast. We drew for everyone, they mirrored. That avoids complexities of camera resolution, and lets you examine other players at a glance: important for a co-op game. (Yeah, I deliberately bought Pandemic just as we entered isolation since I've always wanted it and obvious reasons).
- iso947 6y ago
  Had deliberately avoided playing it this year, too depressing.
hunterloftis 6y ago
I'm building a Dungeons&Dragons/Pathfinder/etc remote tabletop system for my D&D party: https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1248742209110884353 https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1248742209110884353 "Share a link and start playing" has been the most important quality for my group of variously-technically-experienced friends.
- bovermyer 6y ago
  This has my attention, especially if it has D&D Beyond integration.
ISL 6y ago
We've been mounting a Logitech webcam to an inexpensive tripod with an inverted-column. We connect that webcam to a computer and log it in to a videoconference. We use another computer to bring our family into a videoconference with friends. Works great with most games. Took us about half an hour to get the lighting right, and now we can spin it up in about five minutes to play any game in the house. About half the time, we don't even play the game. Conversation matters more than everything else these days.
nkzednan 6y ago
I've been playing some games on https://www.yucata.de/en https://www.yucata.de/en with friends - San Juan, Imhotep, Castles of Burgundy, Russian Railroads, Thurn and Taxis. Beware with Yucata that if you start a game with more than 2 people, you cannot resign and if you start a different game, it makes you take your turn in other games first. We also use Tabletopia https://tabletopia.com/games https://tabletopia.com/games - Terra Mystica - one person needs to buy Tabletopia. For more places to play boardgames online see https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/wiki/play_online https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/wiki/play_online as well as https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvjiiLul6QFObxBM0DIP--Diq1KtQU/htmlview?fbclid=IwAR2W75p0dE0iiXSO0GLzZJJLZUJXTfFphUZRl7z0C8C2Z6VeOXh__iHfBXg https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvj...
intenscia 6y ago
If you are after a Board Game Sandbox, I recommend you take a look at Tabletop Playground as they are running a free beta on Steam right now ahead of the games launch next month: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282050/Tabletop_Playground_Beta/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282050/Tabletop_Playgrou... Full Disclosure: I am helping to publish the game, so feel free to AMA
Pietbull 6y ago
I'm currently working on a real-time games platform for more social-type games over video calls. https://ziago.co https://ziago.co It has a few popular drinking games also. Working on adding more intellectual games soon. Would be happy for some feedback/suggestions. It's running on Firebase and Vue.
netjiro 6y ago
https://github.com/netjiro/hactac https://github.com/netjiro/hactac Fun, tricky, tactical hacknslash tabletop/rpg. Played since 2008. A bunch of adventures and campaigns available. Uploading when I have time. Hundreds of hours of adventures in the repo already. Let me know if you want to try it out. Happy to host a game (UTC+2 CEST). We usually play over maptool and mumble these days. 1) README 2) Adventures in Kingsland 3) basic rules and design ideas 4) Dungeon of Testing 5) Return of Uchly Namen etc
netjiro 6y ago
For most I think it's just finding friends to play with, then finding time/priority/scheduling to actually get playing.
JohnDuroe 6y ago
Try Happy Meeple (https://www.happymeeple.com/en/ https://www.happymeeple.com/en/) for a good selection of simple board games. All games come with a tutorial, AIs and sound/music. It is the most polished board game platform out there. Try Lost Cities if you don't know where to start. It is the most popular game.

228 points by joemasilotti 6y ago

it is going to make it harder to cheat at monopoly.

I wish there was something Flash-like, even easier probably, what would let you make multiplayer board games easily. A board game essentially is just a simple set of pictures you move around + a chat + a dice perhaps. This sounds fairly easy to implement.

zentiggr 6y ago
Look at VASSAL - it's primarily been used for wargaming but modules can be made with lots of different mechanics, and the more recent abilities to build automated rule behavior get better and better.

zentiggr 6y ago

For those with a more wargaming lean, VASSAL is an amazing toolkit. Full Java app, and modules for hundreds of games all the way back to the original version of Tactics from AH. I've personally done a bit of improvements on Fifth Frontier War, from ye olde Traveller universe.

joemasilotti 6y ago
Yeah, VASSAL is a good alternative to TTS! I left it out because I'm personally not into war games which feels like it's strength. But I would definitely be open to learning it and adding it to the article.
mcguire 6y ago
Note that it only runs under Java 8. But yeah, it's got modules for wargames as well as cards and probably others. It's free, and most mods are too.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

I was hoping this was going to be how to modify boardgames to play with friends via webcam. We played Monopoly, and had good success - one board, setup a ghost player for the remote people. Remote people used parts of a set to keep track of their money and properties. Later several hours. >In my experience, Zoom is the most consistent service and works on almost any device. One person in your group will need a paid subscription if you want to host an event longer than 40 minutes. // We used meet.jit.si, it was free, good sound/video quality and long call time was no problem.

kickscondor 6y ago
My group has been doing a similar thing - except that video quality has been to unreliable for some of the more detailed boards (Troyes, Power Grid). We needed the ability to pinch and zoom the board. We’ve been using an app called iPhotoBot to take high res shots every few seconds. These get uploaded to Dropbox. Then there is a web server of a synced folder which builds a page of the images. Server-sent events are used to update the page. It’s kind of clunky to set up, but I can share my code if anyone is interested. I’m also curious if there are better ways to stream high quality photos.
- joemasilotti 6y ago
  Wow, that sounds pretty cool though! I wonder if there are any video services that offer pinch-to-zoom. An alternative would be to open a video chat in your browser. Then, on a Mac, you can zoom in with your touchpad. But I think zooming on the page in any browser should work, right?
  - antsar 6y ago
    Resolution might be a problem, since you're just looking more closely at the same pixelated full-board video you were already receiving. If the VC software was smart enough to detect your pinch action and send you a cropped feed at higher resolution from the source, that's a different story. Not sure if any existing tools do this.
6y ago

ilikepi 6y ago

Tabletopia is another online service for this. They seem to have quite an extensive library.

joemasilotti 6y ago
Good call. I initially left it out because it felt too close to TTS. How does it compare?
- tialaramex 6y ago
  We've played a couple of games in both TTS and Tabletopia. Neither became a favourite. Superficially they are indeed very similar, you're getting a 3D simulated world with the board game in it, and then a clumsy way to interact with that world. We did not find (not sure if any exist) rules enforcement implementations for Tabeltopia. Every game we tried we had to understand and enforce any rules, and the physics engine is arguably an obstacle rather than assistance as it neatly allows you to drop cards where they can't go, flip cards you shouldn't see, resize counters or accidentally stack them when that's not useful.... Big upside to Tabletopia: It runs in browser. If a person in your group has a company laptop that's locked down to do Office and so on, chances are it can't run Steam (and so TTS isn't possible) but it can run Chrome and thus Tabletopia works. Definitely the biggest contrast is to BGA. BGA is the place to go if you want rules enforcement and aren't happy to stick with one game you all enjoy. But you won't get any of the mechanical joy if that's important to you. If you actually enjoy making change with monopoly money, BGA discards that because their rules enforcement just turns the amount of money (cows, glory, mana, whatever) into a number instead. Little wooden cubes become small red squares on the screen that appear exactly where the designer put them, you can't balance them or line them up how you want, because that isn't part of the game rules. Personally I am now spending several hours every single week on a variety of games at BGA and maybe one session of TTS Gloomhaven if we can face it. To me video conferencing isn't essential. We usually run a Hangout for live games, but in practice you care mostly about the voices. It's satisfying to hear another player say "Aw, I wanted that" when you take away an option you suspected they wanted, and it's easy to say "Sorry, Jenny is screaming, back in five" and put the headset down compared to having to type all that with a child screaming.

iso1631 6y ago

After watching an attempt to make Scrabble work [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaXo_i3ktwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaXo_i3ktwM ], I was thinking what games could work via a webcam if all players have the game. Thinking of games I've played recently, Dominion would work. Ticket to Ride wouldn't. On the Underground would, 1960 Making of a President wouldn't. Normal Settlers wouldn't, but the junior version of Settlers would The key thing is not drawing secret information from a shared pool. Dominion works as it's secret information from a non-secrete deck, which can be known by all players -- you just have to ensure to remove the right cards from play. If player A takes a Duchy, player B removes one Duchy from his set from play. With Ticket To Ride there's no way to ensure that you don't get the same tickets on each side - secret information from a common limited source. Normal Settlers would struggle with the soldier cards -- you can draw a soldier, but it could be roadbuilding or year of plenty. Junior settler has the same with coco cards, but those are played immediately so that works. Obvioulsy open games, like Chess, Go, Backgammon, work. Games like Battleships and Guess Who, where there is secret information but no shared ppol would work too (ok you could both be guessing the same character in guess who, but that would be OK)

wiredfool 6y ago
An Oracle/proctor would help, to set things up and divide the state up properly.
taejo 6y ago
Dominion would indeed work with webcam, because everyone only shuffles their own cards, but you can only play with the cards that everyone has (if one player has an expansion and the others don't, you can't use it). If all of your players already know how to play, I strongly recommend the official Dominion Online [0]! The base game is free, and the expansions are very affordable too ($1.95 for a month with half the expansions [the older ones], or $3.90 for all, no recurring charges, and only one player at the table needs to have bought them). Unfortunately it's not very intuitive as an introduction to the game because you don't get a good feel of where cards are coming from and going to, but once you know the game it's arguably better (because of the instant setup and shuffling, and automatic tracking of effects). [0] https://dominion.games/ https://dominion.games/

Tomte 6y ago

Brettspielwelt is huge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrettspielWelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrettspielWelt I can recommend it, although it's been years s8nce I've played there.

prodent 6y ago
Tried last Saturday, and it was completely unplayable. I guess they were under too much load. It took us an hour to just start a session of Wizard, and then we never managed to actually play because it keep throwing us out and showing error messages.
distances 6y ago
We tried this, but it just .. didn't work. Massive problems getting a game to launchable mode, and then it just doesn't launch. Games disappearing from the invite list, and joins not registering. I can easily imagine that all could now be caused by overwhelming traffic, but the outcome was no game anyway.

lewich 6y ago

https://tabletopia.com/ https://tabletopia.com/ is not included in blog article, but is worth to try. Their library is huge and games there are very fun to play. Recommended.

zeeZ 6y ago
The biggest flaw with this one is the lack of an undo button. Interacting with stacks of cards is sometimes weird, and the physics get wonky, especially with hex tiles that snap to the board, but still don't align properly. It works better the less objects are involved. Playing "Wingspan", putting a card below another with eggs on top is dangerous. Don't even try to play "Dominant Species".

keiferski 6y ago

Reminds me of this cool DIY project to record chess piece moves (on a physical board) to a computer. https://tech.bakkenbaeck.com/post/chessvision https://tech.bakkenbaeck.com/post/chessvision https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613982

bluetidepro 6y ago

> In my experience, Zoom is the most consistent service and works on almost any device. One person in your group will need a paid subscription if you want to host an event longer than 40 minutes. Have to disagree on this, Discord has been a FAR better solution for my group of friends and I with our online game nights. We tried Zoom, Discord, Google Meet/Hangouts, and Discord has, by far, been the best UI/UX/clarity/quality.

ollerac 6y ago
The one thing I like about Zoom above Discord is the ability to see people's faces. Discord doesn't have this, right? It's nice to use the mini-layout in Zoom and put it off to the side like the article suggests. I'm still waiting for some guy on Twitter[0] who's working on his own game board simulator to release his 8-bit video conferencing solution. The pixelation gives the perfect feel when you're playing DnD online with friends during a pandemic. [0] https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1245385563697545219 https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1245385563697545219
- bluetidepro 6y ago
  Discord has video chat, as well: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000982752-Screen-sharing-Video-Calls https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500098275...
  - ollerac 6y ago
    Oh, nice, I was completely unaware of this feature. I must have missed it because it's only available inside private or group DMs, not channels!
    - durzagott 6y ago
      I think it's available in channels now: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041721052-Server-Video https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004172105...

bitexploder 6y ago

Haven’t seen anyone mention tabletop simulator (available on Steam). It won’t be for everyone. I play Magic the Gathering and board games with friends. Many other games are also available with no work. You can play almost any board game with a little elbow grease.

bluetidepro 6y ago
> Haven’t seen anyone mention tabletop simulator (available on Steam) It's literally mentioned in the article?
sunnyam 6y ago
It's mentioned in the article...

theaeolist 6y ago

Any similar suggestions for card games, especially Poker?

joemasilotti 6y ago
I haven't found anything yet, but if I do I'll add it to the article.
- gotrythis 6y ago
  http://kosmi.io/ http://kosmi.io/
fonosip 6y ago
https://ba.net/poker/live/ https://ba.net/poker/live/ https://truco.ba.net https://truco.ba.net for truco or spanish card games
TecoAndJix 6y ago
I spent a good portion of my day searching for this yesterday (everything looks very shady). What i really want is a self hosted option but i have not found anything yet.
avimoondra2 6y ago
The best ones I've played on are https://www.pokernow.club/ https://www.pokernow.club/ - Poker https://www.trickstercards.com/ https://www.trickstercards.com/ - including Spades, Bridge, Hearts
joemasilotti 6y ago
You could try http://playingcards.io/ http://playingcards.io/ It's effectively a 52 card sandbox. You can also invite other players with a unique URL. Each player has their own "hand" private to others. The controls seems a tad clunky but it should work for just about any card game!

itronitron 6y ago

+1 for Tabletop Simulator, one of my children taught themselves Blender in the process of creating and uploading a game for TTS.

joemasilotti 6y ago
TTS is a such a blast. I have a group of five friends who play Wingspan every week and the winner gets to flip the table. Such a satisfying experience! Also, secretly making your opponents pieces slightly bigger or smaller can be a fun way to stay occupied between turns.
jjice 6y ago
My friends and I have been loving TTS. $20 is a pretty good deal for a sandbox where all the heavy lifting has been done already so you can just have a good time.

mariusz331 6y ago

We're working on an app for social/board games with built in video chat: https://www.cyberspaces.app https://www.cyberspaces.app Current we offer: Boggle (just released yesterday, feedback is especially appreciated) https://www.cyberspaces.app/boggle https://www.cyberspaces.app/boggle Codenames (we call it Cyberterms) https://www.cyberspaces.app/cyberterms https://www.cyberspaces.app/cyberterms Liar's Dice https://www.cyberspaces.app/liarsdice https://www.cyberspaces.app/liarsdice Kings https://www.cyberspaces.app/kings https://www.cyberspaces.app/kings

mariusz331 6y ago
Other things to point out: It's free and no signup is required by any of the game participants (just create a room, share link, and enter). If you have a good/bad experience, feel free to reach out: mariusz at cyberspaces dot app
chrisweekly 6y ago
Awesome, thanks!! Codenames is one of our gamenight crew's favorites; will def try it out this wknd! :)
- mariusz331 6y ago
  Of course! We love Codenames too. We are fielding ideas for next week's game so we'd love to hear about the other games your crew plays.
JohnKacz 6y ago
Looks good. I'd love to know what stack you're building with and what you're learning. After seeing the readastorytome.com Show HN [0] was using Phoenix LiveView I was considering building a similar app to play spades or 42 as an excuse to learn some things I've been wanting to learn for awhile. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836940
- mariusz331 6y ago
  Awesome! Building these sort of games is a lot of fun and I recommend it! We think there's a good opportunity right now for games over video chat: folks that are self-isolating need a way to connect with each other and if you provide a fun service for that I think it will be used. We started off using what we knew best: Rails, React and the Twilio Video SDK. We'll introduce other technologies as they are needed to increase our velocity or enable us to build more rich game experiences. Happy to chat more offline: mariusz at cyberspaces dot app

mcv 6y ago

The site in the leading image is not mentioned elsewhere in the article, but it's Dominion, which can be played at https://dominion.games/ https://dominion.games/ (Disclaimer: the online version is developed by a friend of mine. Not the original physical game of course, which is the best-selling game by Donald X. Vaccarino.)

joemasilotti 6y ago
Oh, wow... I can't believe I forgot to add that site! I literally used it last night and that photo is of me and my friends.
- _pastel 6y ago
  I enjoyed that you have a Base Set strategy guide open at the same time as you're playing. Looks like a rough game. Why did you buy the last Cellar to end the game when you were behind?
yeahboats 6y ago
I highly recommend people check out Dominion. Having played many years ago on isotropic and then less so when goko/makingfun took over, this implementation is pretty light and quick. The games themselves go pretty fast, and there's enough expansions that every game shouldn't devolve into a solved format. (I say this as a casual player learning the new expansions). You get access to the base game for free, and the pricing model for the expansions is pretty fair in my opinion (~$5/month for all thirteen, ~$2.50/month for half). There's a matchmaker and custom games. Even bots for those who want to play solo.
_pastel 6y ago
Is your friend doing okay? The site seems pretty slammed. Looks like they finally got the ratings updater back online after it went down a few weeks ago.
- mcv 6y ago
  He's doing fine, if a bit lonely, because he can't yet afford to hire anyone to work on it together. Though he has an active online community helping him out. The site had some stability issues when user numbers spiked a couple of weeks ago, but he says he can scale more easily now and isn't afraid if everybody on HN comes to check it out.

not_math 6y ago

There's this Codenames clone [1] that's great, you can play in multiples languages and you don't need to share a screen to play. It's for 4-8 players and it's easy to play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codenames_(board_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codenames_(board_game) [1] https://www.horsepaste.com/ https://www.horsepaste.com/

joemasilotti 6y ago
Awesome, thanks for the link! I'm working on an addendum to the article for game-specific sites. This is perfect.
- akrolsmir 6y ago
  Ah, if you're aggregating links, I've seen some pretty comprehensive Google sheets listing the different online board games to play in quarantine. Here's one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvjiiLul6QFObxBM0DIP--Diq1KtQU https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvjiiLu... Also, plug for my own site https://oneword.games https://oneword.games. It's an implementation of Just One, the 2019 Spiel des Jahres winner. I built it a month ago just to play with my friends; now I'm getting hundreds of daily players and I can't figure out where they're even coming from =P

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kzrdude 6y ago

Colonist.io has been playable and nice (for Settlers of Catan). They too struggle under load.

mcv 6y ago
I know from the creator of Dominion Online[0] that he had to upgrade his servers since the start of the Corona crisis. Lots of new users, leading to all sorts of problems. He seems to have things under control now, though. [0] https://dominion.games/ https://dominion.games/
groggo 6y ago
Want to try a looser, table-top style version? Email me cebraverde, at gmail.com I was frustrated by the official online Catan and Colonist.io, so I made my own version.
jvm_ 6y ago
They have a beta site that was less swamped last time we played. No rankings, but we didn't care.

chadlavi 6y ago

I've used boardgames arena, it's ok but has a very classic German web design feel -- horrible UX that acts like the user is a dummy for needing good UX.

paulgb 6y ago

Between this article and the comments, I'm bookmarking this page as a good list of these games. I'd be remiss if I didn't add my own humble attempt, a Boggle-like game to be played over screen share: https://wordgame.paulbutler.org/ https://wordgame.paulbutler.org/

tln 6y ago

"a tad clunky"? Every single person I've shown boardgamearena.com has commented on the subpar UX. But then we play a few games of Coup and all is good :) https://acquire.tlstyer.com/ https://acquire.tlstyer.com/ is a good implementation of Acquire

distances 6y ago
On the other hand, we found boardgamearena.com very, very polished after trying out yucata.de and brettspielwelt.de.

eugenekolo 6y ago

Another addition that I've found really fun is Lords of Waterdeep. The board game version of it is a chore to play due to setup and how massive the board is. The digital version is way more fun as the board game is set up already for you, and not as daunting. Lords of Waterdeep is available on Steam + iOS + Android - it's the exact same game on it them all. Cross platform gameplay works which is really amazing. AI also exists and isn't half bad. Your non-computer using friends/partners can play on their tablets/phones along side friends who have gaming PCs.

tomcooks 6y ago

I use an online shared spreadsheet (like EtherCalc[0], or Google Sheets) to play my turn-based combat boardgame[1] with friends during the covid19 quarantine lockdown. I think it's a lot faster and easier than using roll20 or other online boardgaming platforms, requires no signup nor learning any new shortcut. [0] https://ethercalc.net/ https://ethercalc.net/ [1] https://www.tomcooks.com/projects/snipr/ https://www.tomcooks.com/projects/snipr/

neftaly 6y ago

I've been working on a WebGL toy for building board games. You can share your hash URL and play with someone else. https://beta.probability.nz/ https://beta.probability.nz/

Longwelwind 6y ago

I've been working on a free and open-source online implementation of the board game "A Game of Thrones (Second edition)": https://swordsandravens.net/ https://swordsandravens.net/ The game can be daunting and long (~4 hours), but the gameplay is very cool!

staz 6y ago
is it finished and playable?
- Longwelwind 6y ago
  Yes, it is!

pidg 6y ago

I wish there was a way to do this but with popular/classic board and card games instead. My friends are, for the most part, not board game nerds. They want to play commercially successful games like Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, Uno, etc. We've had a real struggle to find a sensible way of playing them. Eventually we just had one household point a webcam at a physical copy of Trivial Pursuit and everyone else play via Zoom, which was less than ideal.

joemasilotti 6y ago
You could try https://skillgamesboard.com https://skillgamesboard.com They offer Chess, Checkers, Reversi, Go, Connect Four, and the like.
blahedo 6y ago
boardgamearena supports a whole bunch of classic card (Hearts etc) and board games (Checkers etc).
astura 6y ago
Tabletop Simulator (mentioned in TFA) is ideal for that, it can play most if not all of those. We've played Monopoly, Sorry, The Game of Life, Uno, Clue, and Catan as well as your standard card games (hearts, rummy, etc.). We've got a couple "classics" queued up for this weekend too. The first game was getting used to the controls but it was very smooth sailing after that. It's basically a "sandbox" gave that can support, in theory, any board game.
- amiga_500 6y ago
  Can you give me a brief description of how to play Catan on this? I have a harder problem than just playing against friends. My wife and I, and another couple, all want to play Catan together. I don't want to sit in a different room to my wife. I was considering just using a webcam here and at my friends, having two boards setup and both doing the same moves, so we can all "see" what is going on, and one side looking after the deck, the other the dice.
  - 6y ago

Jsharm 6y ago

I'm surprised there is no mention of jackbox. It's setup to be played by a whole load of friends around the same tv, using their phones as handheld answer devices. We made it work over discord video chat with one person sharing their screen and was a hoot. Quiplash is a lot like cards against humanity and drawful is neat play on pictionary.

astura 6y ago
Jackbox has been, by far, the least successful for our social distancing game group.

ollerac 6y ago

A few friends and I invented a board game several years ago and we all thought this pandemic time would be a great opportunity to get back into it. I set up a real time board game maker online, called DoomGrid[0]. It's very basic and just uses Firebase to sync a bunch of game objects across everyone's game board. We also published the rules for our invented game recently[1] (warning, only 70% complete). We've now spent over 10+ hours developing those rules and the story behind them. If you haven't tried inventing a game yet, I'd highly recommend it. It's really fun! I personally enjoy it just as much as actually playing the finished game. And it's very rewarding the play something you crafted from scratch. [0] https://doomgrid.com/ https://doomgrid.com/ [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GBGlrMk4By5IZ28yCqq3vHAouzLk9FitqYkSmoC4SkI/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GBGlrMk4By5IZ28yCqq3vHAo...

joemasilotti 6y ago
This looks like a blast! I'll have to share it with my friends this weekend. We always think of new board game ideas but never take them anywhere. DoomGrid could really help.
polishdude20 6y ago
A friend and I made a game a few weeks ago and it's also just simply synchronizes the board using a server to store the game state. It's a Codenames clone you can find here http://those.codes http://those.codes
- ollerac 6y ago
  This looks great. Do you think your friend might add a short paragraph to the home page explaining what this does? Might engender a little more trust. I'm totally gonna use this to play Codenames with my parents-in-law.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  That's very polished, I like the "draw yourself" animation.
philsnow 6y ago

kashyapc 6y ago

A few weeks ago I tried Tabletop Simulator with two other friends to play Gloomhaven[+]. I admire the developers that took on such a (positively) complex and rich game as Gloomhaven. But it was a far cry from in-person playing (I realize). It's very much understandable—you just can't replicate that high-definition feeling you get from in-person game, especially from such a rich game. I was 'dejected' (again, that's not the right word) enough that I didn't try Tabletop Simulator anymore. Maybe I should try other games. Man ... do I now wish that I hadn't turned down (with lazy excuses) all those in-person Gloomhaven sessions I was invited to. Live and learn. [+] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven

joemasilotti 6y ago
I feel your pain. As fun as online sessions are nothing beats physically picking up a figurine or meeple. I also found Gloomhaven particularly hard to use on TTS. Wingspan, on the other hand, was a joy to play.
- kashyapc 6y ago
  Thanks, will check out Wingspan. Haven't heard of it before.
caffeinewriter 6y ago
There are definitely some games that just don't translate as well to Tabletop Sim, but as far as shared tabletop experiences, TTS blows every other one I've tried out of the water on the widest variety of games. I use it for D&D, Wizards' Academy, and I own about half of the official DLC games.
- kashyapc 6y ago
  Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't even scratched the surface with TTS.
  - caffeinewriter 6y ago

blakeburch 6y ago

Austin has a local board game Meetup group that's shifted entirely to Tabletop Simulator during this time. It's great and definitely maintains the best feeling of playing a physical board game. I'm surprised that the author didn't mention the hundreds of games that you can download for free in the Steam Workshop as mods. Not all of them work flawlessly, so you have to test things out beforehand. However, the almost unlimited array of options is what makes TTS stand out. We've found that games without hand management tend to work best. Over the past 4 weeks, we've run games like Arkham Horror, Great Western Trail, Terra Mystica, Blood Rage, Caverna, Puerto Rico, Hansa Teutonica, Concordia, Lords of Waterdeep, and Quacks of Quedlinburg.

mariusz331 6y ago
This is awesome and gave me a lot of ideas! I'd love it if you checked out this app we're building to play social/board games over video chat. There aren't as many options as Tabletop Simulator but it may still be a good fit for your meetups: https://www.cyberspaces.app https://www.cyberspaces.app
- fragmede 6y ago
  One feature in tabletop simulator is that it is literally a simulator of a tabletop - which means that the simulated tabletop can be flipped over. At least, I think that’s supposed to be feature!
joemasilotti 6y ago
I skipped mentioning the workshop mods because of the huge variation in quality. A follow up post could go through a bunch of mods and recommend some good ones, though!
- blakeburch 6y ago
  Yeah, that's a pretty meaty topic on its own. If you choose a mod with bad scripting, you're in for a rough ride. I always try to test a game out by myself to make sure everything functions as expected. On the bright side, if anything messes up, you can usually press undo and just manually move the pieces around. :)

jaflo 6y ago

I worked on a multiplayer version of the puzzle card game Set recently with a friend. It uses socket.io to communicate and Svelte for the front end. It’s a lot of fun to play with friends or alone: https://isaset.com/ https://isaset.com/

seandavidfisher 6y ago
This is really well done! Love the subtle animations and the ability to pick cards with the keyboard.
- jaflo 6y ago
  Thank you!
govg 6y ago
https://setwithfriends.com https://setwithfriends.com This is an implementation I have played with a bit, works well too!
- jaflo 6y ago
  I was going to comment that it doesn’t work well on mobile, but it looks like that’s on their todo list: https://github.com/ekzhang/setwithfriends https://github.com/ekzhang/setwithfriends I wasn’t aware of this implementation, thank you for sharing!

seandavidfisher 6y ago

Thanks for sharing! I'll have to try some of those. I've been working on an online Codenames clone as a side project for virtual get-togethers. It is live and playable[0] and requires 4+ players. I'm planning on open-sourcing it as soon as I find the time. It's been a good excuse to practice some Vue.js and Websocket communication and a lot of fun! [0] http://codenames.seafish.io http://codenames.seafish.io

polishdude20 6y ago
It's interesting to see other implementations of Codenames! We've made one here http://those.codes http://those.codes
seandavidfisher 6y ago
I've since open-sourced this, contributions welcome. https://github.com/seanfisher/codenames https://github.com/seanfisher/codenames

shawndrost 6y ago

Huge recommendation for http://netgames.io http://netgames.io, they have Secret Hitler and Codenames and the UI makes sense.

cozuya 6y ago
There's my crap https://secrethitler.io https://secrethitler.io. (because of some poor design decisions its capped for new players at around 250-300, there's also https://private.secrethitler.io https://private.secrethitler.io and https://beta.secrethitler.io https://beta.secrethitler.io as well)

twaldecker 6y ago

Finding good games to play online with friends and family is a difficult task, because you find very much crap. So I appreciate the post. I implemented the games Halma, Mühle and Dame. Don't know the English names. Ui for now is only in German: https://wunderwald.games https://wunderwald.games

jaflo 6y ago
I tried Halma briefly and it didn’t seem to enforce rules or play order. Is that by design?
- twaldecker 6y ago
  Yes, it's by design. It was easier at first but you can "help" new players easier.

jaflo 6y ago

Are there any online versions of the card games Mao, Golf, or Lucky Bastard/Karma? I’ve been considering making some sort of card game simulator that supports those because I haven’t found a good 1) website that 2) works across screen sizes and 3) enforces play order. http://playingcards.io/ http://playingcards.io/ is the closest I have seen.

avimoondra2 6y ago

Here's a great (and growing) list of free or freemium board games online that a friend shared with me! Document version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10iOD7Wy_YU4NmkPU7ZH7YTrq11qJAANjZZ0PAotKhR8/preview?pru=AAABcdDzhlo*0uQs11KuxXOQu3Sowcll0Q https://docs.google.com/document/d/10iOD7Wy_YU4NmkPU7ZH7YTrq... Spreadsheet version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FnsE0E3p_qVugf2Tu6djTV_bHw3oL74P8tWZITsBL4A/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FnsE0E3p_qVugf2Tu6dj...

avimoondra2 6y ago

Recently released[0] a free, online version of a favorite social/party game... it goes by the name of Fishbowl, Salad Bowl, Monikers, or Celebrities. http://fishbowl-game.com/ http://fishbowl-game.com/ The first version was created and tested in ~3 weeks. So far it's been fun and hilarious for groups of friends, family, or coworkers (4 to 10+ players, ages 5+). Also open source[1]. Built with Typescript, React, Material UI, Apollo GraphQL, Hasura, Express, and Postgres; deployed on Render. [0] Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902950 [1] https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl

seeken 6y ago

Currently building a Splendor clone in Phoenix LiveView to teach myself Elixir... I had a rare moment of geek glee last night when I got the reserve-card functionality working, watching the cards disappear from the other screens. Afterwards I think I will do Azul in Blazor as a way of comparing the two frameworks.

Splendor 6y ago

Has anyone found an easy solution for video chats with virtual games? I've tried Hangouts, Meet, Discord, and Zoom but they all seemed incomplete for my requirements. My requirements: - Host can share their screen and video camera at the same time without having to join the meeting from two different devices - Desktop audio and host's audio can be heard by everyone on the call - Gallery view in video chat so everyone can be seen while playing the game

dddddaviddddd 6y ago
> Desktop audio and host's audio can be heard by everyone on the call I find the inability to have more than one person 'speaking' at a time the most unnatural thing about videoconferencing. Is there any solution?
phlamb 6y ago
I found Skype to be the easiest to use with these requirements. I hosted a Jackbox game and was able to share my screen (and game audio), my webcam (albeit in a smaller view than normal), and could see everyone in a gallery view.
- Splendor 6y ago
  Thanks. I'll give it a shot.
- Splendor 6y ago
  I tried Skype and it fell short as well. While sharing my screen I can only see a small floating window that shows 1 participant at a time. I can't see everyone while sharing the game. It was very easy to share my desktop audio while sharing the screen though.

imetatroll 6y ago

I've been working on a vtt for DND5E for the past couple of years. You can text/video chat, create characters, maps and all of the essentials! Please take a look! https://imetatroll.com https://imetatroll.com If you really like what I am doing, I have a twitter account and a patreon account. Thanks!

ollerac 6y ago
This looks great. I love the font! A 2 minute screencast overview video showing the interface would go a long way to making me want to sign up.
- imetatroll 6y ago
  Thank you! I will be working on an introductory video soon :)
- imetatroll 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCzEAhkVqsU1CFTGDKzR8A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCzEAhkVqsU1CFTGDKzR8A I do have two older videos if you are interested!
  - ollerac 6y ago
    Yeah, I love these! Definitely made me want to give it a try! Maybe embed them both the home page somewhere?
ollerac 6y ago
I just tried it out and it was really hard to get started. I couldn't figure out how to edit a game board and there was really little guidance around what to do, like a step 1, step 2, step 3. I had no idea what an "Encounter" sized board was, for example. And the icon buttons were hard to use. I had to hover over them to see what they did and it wasn't easy. Maybe use a tooltip library for those (like tippy.js) or just have the text next to the icons — this would be much more usable. Also, a quick getting started video overview would be awesome. I wasn't sure how to edit a board or see it in perspective. I really like the general interface and feel of it thought. Felt old school and like it's own little world. I was also impressed that you have video and audio chat built in — really, really cool. I hope it gets easier to use, because I think I'd want to try it more!

guptaneil 6y ago

This is a nice list for playing with people already familiar with euro games. If you’re looking for more social games that can be picked up by casual gamers, I’ve been keeping a running list of sites I’ve used at the bottom of https://blog.metamorphium.com/2020/03/19/play-from-home/ https://blog.metamorphium.com/2020/03/19/play-from-home/ The list is focused primarily on games that are good for remote team building, but work well for any casual group. So far, games include Secret Hitler, Codenames, Love Letter, Spyfall, Jackbox, Avalon, One Night Werewolf, and some others. Let me know if you have more links in this category of games!

monksy 6y ago

I wrote about this as well on the 11 April: https://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2020/04/games-that-you-can-play-over-zoom-remotely/ https://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2020/04/games-that-you-... There are more games there that you can play.

afro88 6y ago

My dad is in his late 70s, not good with technology and likes to play scrabble. We used to play a game every week on the weekend. So I thought now would be a good time to download an app to each of our ipads and play online during lockdown. So as it turns out, there is no good easy clean online scrabble game. They're all horrifyingly gamified, "social" with lots of bots and fake accounts (one with bonus forced facebook login) and full of ads to trick you into downloading other things. All features that my poor non-techy dad would get confused and put off by. I was amazed. So does anyone know of a good simple clean way to play scrabble remotely?

Torwald 6y ago
you could create board in google docs spreadsheet and create stack of letters via script maybe browser plugin if needed.
joemasilotti 6y ago
It's kind of sad, to be honest. The official Scrabble app does exactly what you want, but only for pass-and-play. (At least it did a few years ago when I played.) I wonder if you could set up the game at your house, physically, with a camera pointed bird's eye view. He wouldn't be able to move his pieces, but he might be able to communicate via a video chat?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

RustyRussell 6y ago

We played Pandemic with great success: the other couple had the game too, put all their cards face up so they could find them fast. We drew for everyone, they mirrored. That avoids complexities of camera resolution, and lets you examine other players at a glance: important for a co-op game. (Yeah, I deliberately bought Pandemic just as we entered isolation since I've always wanted it and obvious reasons).

iso947 6y ago
Had deliberately avoided playing it this year, too depressing.

hunterloftis 6y ago

I'm building a Dungeons&Dragons/Pathfinder/etc remote tabletop system for my D&D party: https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1248742209110884353 https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1248742209110884353 "Share a link and start playing" has been the most important quality for my group of variously-technically-experienced friends.

bovermyer 6y ago
This has my attention, especially if it has D&D Beyond integration.

ISL 6y ago

We've been mounting a Logitech webcam to an inexpensive tripod with an inverted-column. We connect that webcam to a computer and log it in to a videoconference. We use another computer to bring our family into a videoconference with friends. Works great with most games. Took us about half an hour to get the lighting right, and now we can spin it up in about five minutes to play any game in the house. About half the time, we don't even play the game. Conversation matters more than everything else these days.

nkzednan 6y ago

I've been playing some games on https://www.yucata.de/en https://www.yucata.de/en with friends - San Juan, Imhotep, Castles of Burgundy, Russian Railroads, Thurn and Taxis. Beware with Yucata that if you start a game with more than 2 people, you cannot resign and if you start a different game, it makes you take your turn in other games first. We also use Tabletopia https://tabletopia.com/games https://tabletopia.com/games - Terra Mystica - one person needs to buy Tabletopia. For more places to play boardgames online see https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/wiki/play_online https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/wiki/play_online as well as https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvjiiLul6QFObxBM0DIP--Diq1KtQU/htmlview?fbclid=IwAR2W75p0dE0iiXSO0GLzZJJLZUJXTfFphUZRl7z0C8C2Z6VeOXh__iHfBXg https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/1nwZkqIoIkkUakCvj...

intenscia 6y ago

If you are after a Board Game Sandbox, I recommend you take a look at Tabletop Playground as they are running a free beta on Steam right now ahead of the games launch next month: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282050/Tabletop_Playground_Beta/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282050/Tabletop_Playgrou... Full Disclosure: I am helping to publish the game, so feel free to AMA

Pietbull 6y ago

I'm currently working on a real-time games platform for more social-type games over video calls. https://ziago.co https://ziago.co It has a few popular drinking games also. Working on adding more intellectual games soon. Would be happy for some feedback/suggestions. It's running on Firebase and Vue.

netjiro 6y ago

https://github.com/netjiro/hactac https://github.com/netjiro/hactac Fun, tricky, tactical hacknslash tabletop/rpg. Played since 2008. A bunch of adventures and campaigns available. Uploading when I have time. Hundreds of hours of adventures in the repo already. Let me know if you want to try it out. Happy to host a game (UTC+2 CEST). We usually play over maptool and mumble these days. 1) README 2) Adventures in Kingsland 3) basic rules and design ideas 4) Dungeon of Testing 5) Return of Uchly Namen etc

netjiro 6y ago

For most I think it's just finding friends to play with, then finding time/priority/scheduling to actually get playing.

JohnDuroe 6y ago

Try Happy Meeple (https://www.happymeeple.com/en/ https://www.happymeeple.com/en/) for a good selection of simple board games. All games come with a tutorial, AIs and sound/music. It is the most polished board game platform out there. Try Lost Cities if you don't know where to start. It is the most popular game.