5 Ways of Playing Board Games on PC Like a Sir!

Meeting with all your friends to play those beloved board games of yours may be hard. Thankfully, with time the borders between board games and video games is getting smaller and smaller! Now you can play board games in your computer or mobile phone and some video games have board versions as well! :D

I would like to share with you 5 different ways of playing board games digitally... like a Sir! :D

1. BoardGameArena

Board game arena is so far my favourite place to play! Many different games, greatly integrated with downtime reduced to the minimum! Check it out! :)

2. Tabletopia

Still in Beta as I write this, Tabletopia has a bright future! It's strongest points are big variety, play the game your way and gorgeous graphics! You can even play our latest game Mishmash Galaxy on Tabletopia here! :D

3. Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator is the most sandboxy of all of them. Sometimes hilarious but always fun! Was very popular some time ago I believe not so many peopleuse it anymore.

4. BoardGames-Online

Not so pretty looking, BoardGames-Online allows for playing some quite popular games. It also has a nice plus... You can play against the computer! :)

5. Steam and other dedicated apps

You can find plenty of dedicated apps in Steam, App Store and Google Play. They are stuffed with great functionality tailored for each game, but usually they are not free. Still cheaper than buying the physical game though! :D

Do you know another place I forgot to mention? Please tell me in the comments! :)

Board Game Companion App vs. Hybrid Game App

What is a board game companion App and what is a Hybrid game? Let's start by describing both and  seeing what can each of them can offer . This is not the first time we talk about them. But the topic is interesting and both apps really fall into the same category of digital products that make little sense without their physical counterpart. 

A companion app is developed on top of the board game it partners. It's an addition to the game rather than an essential part. It serves one single purpose: convenience. It's curious, it was the fans who first saw the possibility in mobile devices. They could be used to count points or check rules of their favourite games. The companies producing the board games didn't want to get into this field because they didn't see the opportunity for monetization.

An example of a "helper" app that really works and people rely on is "Better Settlers". It helps create fair Settlers of Catan board distributions along manual shortcuts. It's a great example of how an app can not only assist a board game but can also improve it. Even the most warring opponents of hybrid products accept companion apps and see their clear value. This is because a companion app is an optional tool. "Optional" is the key word here.

A hybrid game app has something that makes it very different to a companion app. Both the game and the app need each other to make sense. The boardgame will be most likely unplayable without the app, and the app would be an empty shell without the physical components. 

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The combination of these two worlds creates a new gaming experience.
 Should they be tool? In most of the cases yes. Board gamers are not really prepared for products focused on the digital component (like Skylanders for example) Should they be optional? In most of the cases no. If the app is optional the game will have a great life time advantage. On the other hand it will mean that the app is not really making any new thing possible. Anyway, if the app is to be optional (something that I know many gamers will appreciate), it should be a clear choice to decide to use it for the value it brings to the game.

The example for hybrid game is "Roar!" a semi cooperative board game that reminds of Scotland Yard or Stop Thief. The reason why the app is so important in this game is that it does not only keep the position of a player secret easily, but it also plays sounds that the other players need to decipher in order to find the location of the invisible pawn. This is in my opinion, a greater whole.

There is a third group of apps tied couple with board games, and this ones are the board game ports to apps. But since they can live entirely without physical components, I left them out for this post and you can read more about them in the last post if you're interested in exploring this topic a bit more!

Are you the kind of person that accepts companion apps but rejects hybrid games? Do you have any arguments for or against any of them? Happy to hear from you, like always leave a comment at the bottom!

Har' to Port! The digital boardgames issue.

When it comes to boardgames one of the crown argument a majority of gamers like to use as a virtue of this kind of entertainment is that it's disconnecting... From the network, that is, from the computers and technology. It's good, ol' fashioned fun with cardboard and wood and plastic. You take the things, and they are exactly as interactive as you can make them with your bare hands. I know this argument well, because I use it myself when praising the glory of boardgaming hobby to the neophytes of this kind of fun! However, even if this argument sounds like a mantra by now, muttered by the hordes of boardgamers, it cannot be a Golden Truth followed by everyone... because if that would be the case, we wouldn't have ports, now, would we?

Just for the sake of clarity - by Ports I mean fully digital versions of a boardgame, usually in form of a mobile app and even full game released on consoles and/or PC. Which kind of make me ask a question...

If the golden value of a boardgame is the fact, that it allow us fun and entertainment without a need for a computer, why the heck Ports not only exists, but are doing pretty gosh darn well?

And they do well, for sure! Just look at the classics. Catan on App Store, the official Settlers of Catan App have over 14 000 reviews, mostly positive. Carcassone got over 10 000 review there and do exactly as well on Google Play Store, both titles also easily finding their way into the category of over 100 000 installations! And when these are most likely most popular titles as they are, by now, known even to the population that would not describe themselves as boardgame geeks, other games - even those dedicated to heavy players! - find their fully digitalized counterpart sooner or later. Agricola, San Juan, Le Havre and even such big, mindburning title as Through the Ages already got or are on their way to become a boardgame turned videogame.

Now, now, just to clarify. I don't think it's a wrong trend... I just point out a curiosity of such growing desire to enjoy your favourite boardgame even without a boardgame. What happened to the 'because it's not a video game' argument? Where it left? Or maybe it never did, but the gamers adapt to the simple and convenient reality, that by now they don't have to carry huge, heavy boxes with them wherever they goes to play their favourite titles, because a simple and lightweight device - such as a tablet - can be a game shelf on its very own?

Well… I don’t have the answer, and frankly, I am not even sure If I should try to dig it out. The fact is, we have them, so why not use them? When I go out of the house I wouldn’t forget to pick my smartphone, my tablet or my Kindle, right? I reckon this is somehow similar to the debacle that Kindles and other e-readers faces when their popularity emerged and surfaces with enough foam to cause some discussion… Like, the classic question:

Are you still a reader, if instead of enjoying a real, printed on paper book you rather read them letters off the digital, e-ink screen? Can you call yourself a true book fanatic, if you prefer to carry a single, lightweight device with your reading collection instead of carrying about a proper tome (Tried it with hardcovers of Song of Fire and Ice books, didn’t work out so well for my shoulder…)?

The little storm of such discussions is still sometimes heard over the vast ocean of the internet, but by now a consensus of some sort was reached, that reading is not defined by how you read and what tools you utilize to do so, but by the mere fact of, well… Reading. No matter if you do it with your first print run of Lord of the Rings, so yellow and tattered it smelled of last century or on a state-of-the-art, slick and slim powerful device that just got released to the shops to the delight of fans of modern gadgetry.

And so, my beloved readers, I will ask you this simple question:

Are we still boardgamers, if we play boardgames in their digital form? Is enjoying Catan or Agricola or Neuroshima Hex on our mobile devices somehow less of an experience? Does it not make it a boardgame anymore, and if no, what define a boardgame?

Just a little food for thoughts, really.