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I feel like "not especially comfortable with computers" must come with a pretty big weak definition. I've tried TTS a few times and as someone who otherwise is

I feel like "not especially comfortable with computers" must come with a pretty big weak definition. I've tried TTS a few times and as someone who otherwise is very comfortable with both computers AND board games I found the interface impossibly unusable since you have to memorize all sorts of arbitrary keys for flipping and pulling cards and so on. I certainly found it much harder than either any physical or digital implementation that I had tried (but I assume there's some learning curve hump to get over where that wouldn't be true anymore).

nimih 6y ago
Maybe that's not the right description. My tabletop group has a couple communally-owned steam accounts with only copies of TTS, so that folks' partners, friends, and family members who don't have a Steam account of their own (and don't play computer games at all, but are interested in joining in on a less-complex board game) can join in. Other than dealing with Steam's 2FA, the process of teaching and playing games with these sorts of guests goes pretty smoothly in the group's experience. Admittedly, we tend to play games with a more euro-game-y slant, so typically the only interactions you need are to click-and-drag to move pieces, and perhaps `F' to flip a card or token over; if pieces need to be rotated to align correctly, it's pretty easy for more experienced players to worry about that if someone is having trouble with the controls. If the games you like to play require more complicated types of interaction, I could definitely see that being a stumbling block, since the interface seems to get exponentially clunkier as the number of distinct bits you need to deal with increases. Playing Bus is a joy, for instance, but I imagine Arkham Horror is absolutely miserable. edit: To be clear, this is all anecdotal, and TTS has a bunch of warts I don't want to gloss over, but I've been utilizing it heavily since the start of Covid quarantine, and overall I think it's been a pretty positive experience. On whole, although I like platforms like Board Game Arena and software like Vassal, TTS has proven to be better (for my group of friends!) in terms of accommodating a wider variety of people and wider variety of games.

nimih 6y ago

Maybe that's not the right description. My tabletop group has a couple communally-owned steam accounts with only copies of TTS, so that folks' partners, friends, and family members who don't have a Steam account of their own (and don't play computer games at all, but are interested in joining in on a less-complex board game) can join in. Other than dealing with Steam's 2FA, the process of teaching and playing games with these sorts of guests goes pretty smoothly in the group's experience. Admittedly, we tend to play games with a more euro-game-y slant, so typically the only interactions you need are to click-and-drag to move pieces, and perhaps `F' to flip a card or token over; if pieces need to be rotated to align correctly, it's pretty easy for more experienced players to worry about that if someone is having trouble with the controls. If the games you like to play require more complicated types of interaction, I could definitely see that being a stumbling block, since the interface seems to get exponentially clunkier as the number of distinct bits you need to deal with increases. Playing Bus is a joy, for instance, but I imagine Arkham Horror is absolutely miserable. edit: To be clear, this is all anecdotal, and TTS has a bunch of warts I don't want to gloss over, but I've been utilizing it heavily since the start of Covid quarantine, and overall I think it's been a pretty positive experience. On whole, although I like platforms like Board Game Arena and software like Vassal, TTS has proven to be better (for my group of friends!) in terms of accommodating a wider variety of people and wider variety of games.