Online Play! Six Sites for Playing Boardgames through the Web
April 7, 2020 12:48 PM   Subscribe

 
Lovely, though no list would be complete without mention of the venerable yet cutthroat isc.ro.
posted by Richard Saunders at 12:56 PM on April 7, 2020


I received many great answers about online games in this AskMe thread. Thanks to those folks!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:25 PM on April 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also check out Vassalengine.org

Jave based, able to handle real-time or asynchronous email play. One person should own the game though.
posted by Windopaene at 1:34 PM on April 7, 2020


Also cyberboard. I use it in conjunction with an automated card tracking system. Between that and Vassal I can play most of my actual board games. I will say some games actually work better and are less fiddly electronically! Twilight Struggle and Through the Ages both come to mind.
posted by Carillon at 1:38 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


ACTS is the best for CDGs, but no one uses it much anymore. Though I trust it's die-roller, and the fact cheating isn't possible a lot. But, Windows only for cyberboard, and it's kind of been left in the dust.
posted by Windopaene at 1:44 PM on April 7, 2020


My little gaming group has been using a few of these and it's been great. However one game that appears to be impossible to play efficiently and accurately in a non-gross, non evil-enabling way is poker. We've always used short poker rounds as a kind of palate cleanser in between bigger things, and so we've been working on a small independent poker client that isn't tied to some kind of horrible gray market gambling house.

It turns out the real game is figuring out how to play hands to stress test weird game situations (and in betting games there are A LOT of these) while still staying competitive. We've ended up playing a lot more poker than we intended just because it's been fun to try and get the thing to glitch out.

If we get it to a reasonably stable point (and we aren't nearly there yet) I'll be sure to post it to projects.
posted by q*ben at 2:01 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yeah I was redownloading it on a new computer a month ago and was surprised that Cyberboard was last updated in 2010, so definitely a dinosaur in a lot of ways.

With Vassal if you're playing asynchronously, how do you prevent save scumming? That's why those I play with use acts, more to prevent that temptation.
posted by Carillon at 2:10 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


I've been on Board Game Arena a few times a week since this whole thing started. Coughing up two bucks a month for premium access is totally worth it; otherwise you wait around longer than you need to, and two bucks a month is more than worth it for the breadth of games they offer. Also, you can start your own games, which is essential if you're trying to get your regular board gaming group online.

I'm sure I'll start checking out some of these other sites too, but so far Board Game Arena has had more than enough to keep me occupied.

I started delving back into Cardhunter as well, which is probably a terrible idea given the eons and eons I've invested there in the past.
posted by vverse23 at 2:11 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


I, too, have been searching for a way to play poker with my friends from here in USAia while not selling everyone out to Facebook or giving my entire contacts list to some random sketchy company.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:12 PM on April 7, 2020


Know what would be lovely? An app -or on online site - that is just a deck of cards that could be dealt to a group. No specific game associated with it; just a virtual deck of cards that would let you pass the deal, deal as many as you like, throw a few into a virtual “kitty” (thinking of you, Euchre), and let everyone see all cards when played. Just a stinkin’ virtual deck of cards.
posted by Silvery Fish at 3:29 PM on April 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


Silvery Fish: "Know what would be lovely? An app -or on online site - that is just a deck of cards that could be dealt to a group. No specific game associated with it; just a virtual deck of cards that would let you pass the deal, deal as many as you like, throw a few into a virtual “kitty” (thinking of you, Euchre), and let everyone see all cards when played. Just a stinkin’ virtual deck of cards."

deck.of.cards
posted by chavenet at 4:20 PM on April 7, 2020 [8 favorites]


I wish BoardGame Arena or Vassal were blind accessible, as I've wanted a way to play many tabletop games online for a long while. It's a bit of a weird niche, but I'm sure if I could get dev access to, particularly, BGA, I could work on making it more friendly
relatively easily. It's kind of my day job, after all :)
posted by Alensin at 4:28 PM on April 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


Agreed Carillon, no way to prevent save abusing. Other than playing for the experience, other than the win. There have certainly been games where I've opened a vassal log, started my turn, and the realized something has gone wrong, and needed to close the logfile and started again. Always feel like I'm cheating, even if I'm not. That's why I give props to ACTS, and similar.

But I'm more about the game, than the win, and try to play with people who seem to be the same. Not to mention how odd I find the vassal die roller to be...

Oh well, getting to play games I wouldn't otherwise get to play, so, a win.
posted by Windopaene at 4:58 PM on April 7, 2020


It would be a good time to get back into Warlocks which is like playing two games of chess simultaneously against one person.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 5:46 PM on April 7, 2020


This BoardGameGeek webpage lists websites by the specific games that are playable on them, which is probably more often what people are looking for than the cleanliness of their interfaces.
posted by one for the books at 5:52 PM on April 7, 2020


Despite its name, CardGames.io is a whole collection of card and board games. Of particular frustration is the game SpaceBugs which can be found under the 'More Games' menu. Enjoy.
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 5:57 PM on April 7, 2020


Goodness! Deck of cards looks VERY interesting. I don't know what the multiplayer would be like, but if each person got their own hand and couldn't look at others, you could easily play anything from Go Fish to Bridge. You can add a deck and play canasta.

I don't know if it would support competitive solitaire (a game I used to call Pounce), which is separate decks for each player, and has to be able to be sorted by back at the end to count points.
posted by hippybear at 6:04 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Does anyone know of an easy way to prototype card/board games online? Like, DIY it but also it isn’t a huge hassle to put together like Vassal or something
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:58 PM on April 7, 2020


We tried tabletop simulator but it is fairly clunky with cards and started glitching repeatedly due to server side issues related to the upswing in demand. That may have been fixed by now but made it unusable two weeks ago.
posted by q*ben at 8:28 PM on April 7, 2020


yeah honestly I just want, like, a 2D thing that lets me make decks and hands of cards, and maybe have some things you can drag around on a table
posted by DoctorFedora at 9:12 PM on April 7, 2020


And, not only do you have to pay for Tabletop Simulator, but it seems every game requires payment as well. Is this not the case? I already bought the game. Not going to pay again to use an online interface.....
posted by Windopaene at 10:14 PM on April 7, 2020


And, not only do you have to pay for Tabletop Simulator, but it seems every game requires payment as well. Is this not the case? I already bought the game. Not going to pay again to use an online interface.....

It initially can look like that, but on the steam workshop there is a free version of pretty much every game, including games I loved from my childhood that don't exist anymore!

Tabletop is a bit tricky to use at first, and certain games can be too fiddly for it, but once you get a grasp of it it's really fun. Top tips include:

R riffle shuffles a deck
pressing any number over a deck draws that many cards into your hand
holding alt makes the object you are hovering over appear large on your screen
Flipping the table is fun
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:33 AM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I've had an absolute blast using Tabletop Sim over the last couple weeks. It was actually on 50% sale up until yesterday unfortunately, but I'm sure another sale will be coming soon. The Workshop is where you find all the games, all free - it can take a bit of prodding to figure just which build of a game is laid out the way you like / has all the resources and expansions, but there's been some amazing builds out there.

Nemesis is a fairly complicated but interesting 'Alien: The Board Game' operation, with exploration, survival, and personal goals that can lead to hilarious betrayal
Fury of Dracula has a beautiful implementation for this legendary hidden movement 4v1 game
Netrunner has every card released, and a handy interface to quickly import decks from netrunnerdb to try out any type of build or test out championship decks
Cthulhu Wars! Try out the hundreds of dollars of expansions and variant play options without devoting several cubic yards of household storage space
Hyperspace - the next big Sandy Petersen game which has had delivery delayed due to Chinese factory stoppages... but don't let that stop you, it's here in the virtual realm!
Dominion, the deckbuilder of tremendous scope - all expansions, with a variety of options for scripted setup.

I do highly recommend this advanced tutorial on top of the standard one, there's a ton of interface tricks that make it much simpler to navigate the virtual world.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:27 AM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


If we’re getting into non-browser-based stuff, lately I’ve been really getting back into Puzzle Strike, one of the earlier deckbuilder games — I like to describe it as “multiplayer Dominion,” usually. This is meant partially as a subtle dunk on Dominion, but really more to quickly express that it is broadly similar to Dominion but with a direct emphasis on interaction between the players due to its “falling block puzzle game” theming; you really do have to pay close attention to what the other player(s) are up to.

There are digital versions available on iOS and Steam, with crossplay between them, and it’s just a great game! Highly recommended as an overlooked, er, gem.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:13 AM on April 9, 2020


Doesn't seem to list http://www.brettspielwelt.de/
posted by rmd1023 at 11:01 AM on April 10, 2020


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