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Honestly, I've never really understood the appeal of Tabletop Simulator for 2-D games. Seems like a lot of overhead (computationally and conceptually) for somet

by SamBam 5y ago

Honestly, I've never really understood the appeal of Tabletop Simulator for 2-D games. Seems like a lot of overhead (computationally and conceptually) for something that would be more clearly and simply recreated in a 2-D world. I've stuck to boardgamearena for my online playing.

svachalek 5y ago
It can be nice I guess when you've internalized the camera to the point you don't have to think about it. But it's so overkill. All I really want is a fast lightweight client that runs on anything.
bpodgursky 5y ago
Is there a 2D tabletop simulator? Friends and I have used it a ton as a fallback for games which don't have a digital copy; you can just scan your physical copy and have it running in TTS in an afternoon. I'm not sure there's a good alternative? (also for true tabletop games like 40k or sigmar the 3d geometry is actually important and fun)
- AdamTReineke 5y ago
  I haven't used it myself but I know Vassal [0] was used for Pipeline playstesting and it seems to have an extensive set of games set up already. I like BoardGameArena since the games are licensed and you know you're supporting the creators in some way versus platforms that are typically unlicensed like TTS. [0] https://vassalengine.org/about.html https://vassalengine.org/about.html
vikingerik 5y ago
The big advantage of TTS is that you can manipulate any components however you want, as in physical play. You can apply house rules, add custom components (cards/factions/etc), allow take-backs or corrections, play out experimental what-if scenarios, and so on. If you don't care about that amount of freeform object manipulation and just want to bang through a game by its standard implementation, then yeah boardgamearena will do fine.
cableshaft 5y ago
Tabletop Simulator doesn't require coding (although it has support for it). Especially last year during the worst of the pandemic, most game designers who put in the effort were still able to host online playtest nights, attend online game designer conventions (with the help of Discord) and show their games to publishers by making a TTS version of their game. I've looked into making my games on BGA, and their system looked like a PHP mess I didn't want to deal with. If I'm going to be coding anyway I'd rather use a Typescript game engine like Phaser, Swift and SpriteKit, or C# and Monogame, and have full control over it. Here's one of mine I uploaded to the Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2217344915 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=22173...
Rendello 5y ago
I was excited for it but it sets both of my computers on fire and glitches out a ton.

by SamBam 5y ago

svachalek 5y ago

It can be nice I guess when you've internalized the camera to the point you don't have to think about it. But it's so overkill. All I really want is a fast lightweight client that runs on anything.

bpodgursky 5y ago

Is there a 2D tabletop simulator? Friends and I have used it a ton as a fallback for games which don't have a digital copy; you can just scan your physical copy and have it running in TTS in an afternoon. I'm not sure there's a good alternative? (also for true tabletop games like 40k or sigmar the 3d geometry is actually important and fun)

AdamTReineke 5y ago
I haven't used it myself but I know Vassal [0] was used for Pipeline playstesting and it seems to have an extensive set of games set up already. I like BoardGameArena since the games are licensed and you know you're supporting the creators in some way versus platforms that are typically unlicensed like TTS. [0] https://vassalengine.org/about.html https://vassalengine.org/about.html

vikingerik 5y ago

The big advantage of TTS is that you can manipulate any components however you want, as in physical play. You can apply house rules, add custom components (cards/factions/etc), allow take-backs or corrections, play out experimental what-if scenarios, and so on. If you don't care about that amount of freeform object manipulation and just want to bang through a game by its standard implementation, then yeah boardgamearena will do fine.

cableshaft 5y ago

Tabletop Simulator doesn't require coding (although it has support for it). Especially last year during the worst of the pandemic, most game designers who put in the effort were still able to host online playtest nights, attend online game designer conventions (with the help of Discord) and show their games to publishers by making a TTS version of their game. I've looked into making my games on BGA, and their system looked like a PHP mess I didn't want to deal with. If I'm going to be coding anyway I'd rather use a Typescript game engine like Phaser, Swift and SpriteKit, or C# and Monogame, and have full control over it. Here's one of mine I uploaded to the Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2217344915 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=22173...

Rendello 5y ago

I was excited for it but it sets both of my computers on fire and glitches out a ton.