Imagine a multi-platform digital environment with instant access to hundreds of licensed board games… Welcome to Tabletopia!
Online arena for playing board games just like in real life. Play directly in modern desktop web browsers on Mac and Windows platforms, or download on Steam, App Store and Google Play.
Unique editor for building new board games from scratch and bringing paper games to the digital. No programming skills required!
Specialized tools for playtesting, demonstrating, promoting, and monetizing your games.
Fury of Dracula is the superior version of Scotland Yard. Give it a shot.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The Following User Says Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
Imagine a multi-platform digital environment with instant access to hundreds of licensed board games… Welcome to Tabletopia!
Online arena for playing board games just like in real life. Play directly in modern desktop web browsers on Mac and Windows platforms, or download on Steam, App Store and Google Play.
Unique editor for building new board games from scratch and bringing paper games to the digital. No programming skills required!
Specialized tools for playtesting, demonstrating, promoting, and monetizing your games.
Thanks for this - tried out TableTopia and actually found the interface to be fairly slick. Not perfect, but I managed to play a board game with a friend out in Mississauga and between TableTopia and FaceTime it was pretty much like being in person. We played a game we've played together in person before, which helped - don't know how well it'll work with a game neither of us know, but we'll try it out. When I signed up they were giving a free month of their 'Gold' access, which gives access to all of their games.
The Following User Says Thank You to Jawbone Hill For This Useful Post:
Alright guys, real talk about Tabletopia, because if I'm going to sign up for this thing I'd like it to not be a big disappointment.
It says 800 games are available, which is... a lot! But then I'm looking through the games list and I see... okay, Scythe, good stuff, I like Scythe. I like Champions of Midgard too. Terra Mystica isn't usually a game I play, but I recognize its qualities, and the same is true for Brass. They have Everdell and Wingspan, which are popular, even though I thought Wingspan was a touch overrated. Vast isn't bad. I like Secret Hitler, but basically everything I like about it is eliminated by playing it online...
... And that's sort of it, really. I tried looking for any of the games I like, and pretty much nothing is on there. There's no Blood Rage, no TFM, no Fantasy Flight games of any description (perhaps not surprisingly), no Dead of Winter, basically nothing co-op that I want to play. Strikingly absent are euro classics like Puerto Rico and Power Grid. In fact, besides Scythe, I don't think there's a single game in my games cabinet (which is neither excessive nor modest) that appears in this library.
So I guess my question is, does "800 games" really mean 800 games, or does it mean maybe 20 games and then 780 crappy pieces of filler that no one would actually want to play? Because when the #4 and #6 recommended games are Chess and Texas Hold'em, I'm skeptical that this thing is actually as developed as it needs to be to truly call itself an online board gaming platform. I was sort of hoping for Board Games Steam, here...
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Alright guys, real talk about Tabletopia, because if I'm going to sign up for this thing I'd like it to not be a big disappointment.
It says 800 games are available, which is... a lot! But then I'm looking through the games list and I see... okay, Scythe, good stuff, I like Scythe. I like Champions of Midgard too. Terra Mystica isn't usually a game I play, but I recognize its qualities, and the same is true for Brass. They have Everdell and Wingspan, which are popular, even though I thought Wingspan was a touch overrated. Vast isn't bad. I like Secret Hitler, but basically everything I like about it is eliminated by playing it online...
... And that's sort of it, really. I tried looking for any of the games I like, and pretty much nothing is on there. There's no Blood Rage, no TFM, no Fantasy Flight games of any description (perhaps not surprisingly), no Dead of Winter, basically nothing co-op that I want to play. Strikingly absent are euro classics like Puerto Rico and Power Grid. In fact, besides Scythe, I don't think there's a single game in my games cabinet (which is neither excessive nor modest) that appears in this library.
So I guess my question is, does "800 games" really mean 800 games, or does it mean maybe 20 games and then 780 crappy pieces of filler that no one would actually want to play? Because when the #4 and #6 recommended games are Chess and Texas Hold'em, I'm skeptical that this thing is actually as developed as it needs to be to truly call itself an online board gaming platform. I was sort of hoping for Board Games Steam, here...
I've never heard of this until now it sounds that a cool concept. I imagine this library would grow over time as designers build and implement their games. If they get proper shares of the money for their product and the service is good it could take off. I'm going to check it out/
Alright guys, real talk about Tabletopia, because if I'm going to sign up for this thing I'd like it to not be a big disappointment.
It says 800 games are available, which is... a lot! But then I'm looking through the games list and I see... okay, Scythe, good stuff, I like Scythe. I like Champions of Midgard too. Terra Mystica isn't usually a game I play, but I recognize its qualities, and the same is true for Brass. They have Everdell and Wingspan, which are popular, even though I thought Wingspan was a touch overrated. Vast isn't bad. I like Secret Hitler, but basically everything I like about it is eliminated by playing it online...
... And that's sort of it, really. I tried looking for any of the games I like, and pretty much nothing is on there. There's no Blood Rage, no TFM, no Fantasy Flight games of any description (perhaps not surprisingly), no Dead of Winter, basically nothing co-op that I want to play. Strikingly absent are euro classics like Puerto Rico and Power Grid. In fact, besides Scythe, I don't think there's a single game in my games cabinet (which is neither excessive nor modest) that appears in this library.
So I guess my question is, does "800 games" really mean 800 games, or does it mean maybe 20 games and then 780 crappy pieces of filler that no one would actually want to play? Because when the #4 and #6 recommended games are Chess and Texas Hold'em, I'm skeptical that this thing is actually as developed as it needs to be to truly call itself an online board gaming platform. I was sort of hoping for Board Games Steam, here...
Online platforms for boardgame have been around forever. I started playing on Yucata 15 years ago. Tabletopia is just the latest. But like digital streaming platforms, none of them have everything you want. For instance Puerto Rico is on Board Game Arena.
As for the Fantasy Flight Games you enjoy, they aren't available on any online platform. Part of that is licensing issues, but mainly it's because they're far, far more complex than euro games. You'd need a dedicated team of developers to port something like Bloodrage into a digital platform. And FFG/Asmodee have not shown the inclination to make that investment. GMT Games has ported a couple of their games, like Twilight Struggle and Dominant Species, into iOS. You can also find other top games like Le Havre and Through the Ages in the app store.
Lastly, there's VASSAL, an open-source tool for digitizing boardgames. It's not browser based, and the modules usually don't handle rules beyond the basics. Originally designed for wargames, it's a tool for sending move file back and forth. Fans have created VASSAL modules for a crap-tonne of games: http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Category:Modules
But no, there's no boardgame equivalent of Steam. And I wouldn't get your hopes up that there will be anytime soon.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 03-30-2020 at 10:19 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to CliffFletcher For This Useful Post:
Except that Tabletop Simulator does have a bunch of those games through the workshop - Dead of Winter, Blood Rage, even some Fantasy Flight titles. So it's clearly not THAT hard to implement them. I'm guessing it's actually more the licensing than anything else.
EDIT: Incidentally, if anyone wants to set up a Calgarypuck game of something on TTS, let me know.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 03-30-2020 at 10:57 AM.
Except that Tabletop Simulator does have a bunch of those games through the workshop - Dead of Winter, Blood Rage, even some Fantasy Flight titles. So it's clearly not THAT hard to implement them. I'm guessing it's actually more the licensing than anything else.
EDIT: Incidentally, if anyone wants to set up a Calgarypuck game of something on TTS, let me know.
Bought TTS a while back in hopes of playing online, haven’t really found the time or group to yet. I might be up for something like this in the near future. I haven’t played Dead of Winter for a while now, I did really enjoy it when we used to play it.
The Following User Says Thank You to spetch For This Useful Post:
That'd be an easy one to start with to get the hang of the online system for sure... probably don't want to jump STRAIGHT into TI IV. But the mod for it looks so good and I really want to play it...
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno