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The Use of Apps for Board Games

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28 Apr 2019 10:56 #296190 by n815e

You can't play without it . Some BGG users are throwing a fit over this.


I won’t throw a fit over it, I just refuse to buy any games that require an app to play.

It is only so long before the app becomes unsupported and then your game is useless.

Anyone still play games that require a vhs? LOL
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28 Apr 2019 11:32 #296192 by Michael Barnes
Good or bad, it’s not like anyone is going to be playing Journeys in Middle-Earth a year from now anyway so the obsolescence issue is kind of moot.
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28 Apr 2019 11:52 #296193 by Ah_Pook
I really liked the app for Alchemists, but that's the only app integrated game I've seen that made a case for itself imo. If I'm playing a boardgame where all the ai and encounters and whatnot are being spit out of an app I might as well just be playing a pc game at that point.
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28 Apr 2019 12:58 #296197 by Colorcrayons

Michael Barnes wrote: Good or bad, it’s not like anyone is going to be playing Journeys in Middle-Earth a year from now anyway so the obsolescence issue is kind of moot.


This illustrates the problem with gaming, and the industry surrounding it, in general.

To me it begs the question, why bother buying it or most other games at all then?
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28 Apr 2019 13:37 #296199 by Jackwraith

Ah_Pook wrote: I really liked the app for Alchemists, but that's the only app integrated game I've seen that made a case for itself imo.


Same. That's the only one I've played. What it provides for the game is essential, but it's also very simple, so doesn't really require support (new adventures, etc.) so it can go for some time. That said, we played it 4 or 5 times when we first got it and then haven't had any inclination to pull it off the shelf in place of other stuff, so it might be going on the trade list soon.
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28 Apr 2019 13:43 #296200 by Michael Barnes
To me it begs the question, why bother buying it or most other games at all then?

I’m finding it harder and harder to justify it at all. If you have found what you really like, you really like what you are playing, and you are playing what you really like...why bother with more for more’s sake when the games that are coming out with a few exceptions are ephemeral, transient, and replacaeable?

It’s gotten to where I even have a hard time finding anything I want to review...there are tons of games I could probably get for free in exchange for a review but I just don’t even care enough about them to pursue it. If I have a review of a game up, you can be assured it is something I really wanted to take a look at.

I’m having more fun playing around with home brew armies and rules for Dragon Rampant than anything else right now...it’s just a $15 rulebook. So why would I buy a $100 skirmish board game? I love Dungeonquest, Black Fortress and Gloomhaven so what is there for me in an overstuffed box of Kickstarter shit? I can pull out El Grande, Cosmic, or any of my Knizia titles and entertain my whole gang so why the fuck should I care about most of the junk on the BGG hotness?

I’m really just kind of over it...I have been for a while, I guess, but lately I see these piles of new games and it just looks so much waste. Waste of time, waste of money, waste of effort. If someone else finds joy in collecting boxes and shoveling through the shit, bless their hearts I wish them all the best and all and the happiness. But I’m just going to play some Merchant of Venus tonight with my friends, like we’ve done many times, and we will have a great time without feeling like there has to be a new game on the table.
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28 Apr 2019 13:53 - 28 Apr 2019 13:54 #296203 by Ah_Pook

Jackwraith wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: I really liked the app for Alchemists, but that's the only app integrated game I've seen that made a case for itself imo.


Same. That's the only one I've played. What it provides for the game is essential, but it's also very simple, so doesn't really require support (new adventures, etc.) so it can go for some time. That said, we played it 4 or 5 times when we first got it and then haven't had any inclination to pull it off the shelf in place of other stuff, so it might be going on the trade list soon.


Yea, we played it a bunch for a couple months when it came out and then it gathered dust. We would pull it out every once in a while but relearning everything was such a hassle and playing it took so long if you didn't stay in practice that we ended up getting rid of it eventually. All that said, I can't fault the app for any of that heh.
Last edit: 28 Apr 2019 13:54 by Ah_Pook.

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28 Apr 2019 16:50 #296207 by Josh Look

Colorcrayons wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Good or bad, it’s not like anyone is going to be playing Journeys in Middle-Earth a year from now anyway so the obsolescence issue is kind of moot.


This illustrates the problem with gaming, and the industry surrounding it, in general.

To me it begs the question, why bother buying it or most other games at all then?


Needless to say, I’m sure, but this outlook does not represent the hobby at large, especially with the big influx of people who are new to it. This game, forgettable it may be, might be just fine for folks who are hot off of Gloomhaven who are looking for whatever carries them through to the next big thing.

For the rest of us, I think game design is at this place where depending on what you’re looking to get out of it, is either tremendously exciting or severely disappointing. If you’re going into a new game looking for it to do something completely new, yeah, you’re going to come away wondering what the point of it all is. That’s on you though.

What excites me about the stuff coming out these days is that with all this streamlining in thematic gaming to appease a new audience or the old audience who doesn’t have the patience for what the standard was 10-15 years ago (which I am very much a member of), you occasionally get these completely new ways of doing old things. Look, they’re not going to stop making 4X games all of a sudden, and they’re probably going to take place in space, in a Tolkien-esque fantasy realm or in that history melting pot that Sid Meire made famous. The end result, the takeaway of the genre may not change much but we do get games like Star Trek Ascendancy or Civilization: A New Dawn where the tried and true is done in a whole new way while a number of elements long thought to be essential are completely discarded much for the game’s benefit. Thematic games were kitchen sink designs 10 years ago, we’re finally starting to see a “less is more” approach, which I’ve always preferred, with the results to back that mantra up.

TL;DR, looking to break new ground is not where design is right now by and large. Like it or not, we’re at a stage where we re-examine the old and clean it up in hopes that doing so doesn’t lose what made it great.

For some people that means an app, I guess.
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28 Apr 2019 17:58 #296209 by Sagrilarus

n815e wrote:

You can't play without it . Some BGG users are throwing a fit over this.


I won’t throw a fit over it, I just refuse to buy any games that require an app to play.

It is only so long before the app becomes unsupported and then your game is useless.

Anyone still play games that require a vhs? LOL


All those VHS games are still playable. They're all on YouTube.
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28 Apr 2019 19:06 #296212 by n815e

Sagrilarus wrote:

n815e wrote:

You can't play without it . Some BGG users are throwing a fit over this.


I won’t throw a fit over it, I just refuse to buy any games that require an app to play.

It is only so long before the app becomes unsupported and then your game is useless.

Anyone still play games that require a vhs? LOL


All those VHS games are still playable. They're all on YouTube.


Ok.
Will a functioning app still be available twenty years from now? How about two?

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28 Apr 2019 19:10 #296213 by ubarose
Josh makes a good point about the influx of new gamers. They are jumping off from a different point than some one who has been playing games for a few decades. I played with some super enthusiastic new gamers last week. They had played Dominion, Agricola, Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, and Wizard. They were looking for a game that built off of these, which meant I wasn’t going to pull down an old game off my shelf, I was going to pull down something more recent. We decided on El Dorado (deck building), and, since they had never played a drafting game, Sagrada.

Eventually we may introduce them to the great old games on our shelves, but I think it is going to be a while before I hit them with something like my Avalon Hill copy of Merchant of Venus.
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28 Apr 2019 19:20 - 28 Apr 2019 19:21 #296214 by Gary Sax
I respect y'all and where you're coming from, but it's definitely some serious get off my lawn, it used to be better vibes. I don't buy a ton of new games either but I'll be god damned if something like Sidereal Confluence, Spirit Island, or Fields of Fire isn't an absolutely ascendant experience that's building rather than copying older games. I'm in that MoV thread with you guys, I just can't get behind these blanket statements. I mean, shit, Barnes, recent KS release GLOOMHAVEN is one of your examples of "I've already got the best!"
Last edit: 28 Apr 2019 19:21 by Gary Sax.
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29 Apr 2019 10:08 - 29 Apr 2019 10:13 #296229 by Sagrilarus

n815e wrote: Ok.
Will a functioning app still be available twenty years from now? How about two?


If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say yes. But yeah, it's a predict-the-future kind of thing and if I was better at it I'd be at the track now instead of work. You need to decide if the game you're buying will even interest you in 20 years, let alone be available. I'd wager that app outlives 98% of the cardboard copies printed.

There's a simulator for Dark Tower online, and that's reverse-engineering a burned chip. I wouldn't be surprised if any app that falls out of support isn't captured and redeveloped by enthusiastic end-users. And frankly, perhaps improved and expanded. It's what people do.


I personally have been patiently waiting for app integration into boardgames for more than a decade, waiting for that submarine game where you can't see each other's position, and the app let's you know when there's contact. That's available in full video, no reason it couldn't be available in hybrids. It just isn't. Apparently it's deemed too far across the line to interest boardgamers, and the conversation here may be a solid indication of why no one is pursuing it.

I'm happy with a best-of-breed approach. I just don't want the real-time pressure of typical video games, want the socialness of tabletoppers, and want a whisper-thin learning curve for the software aspect (as I enter debug-mode immediately whenever I encounter machinery . . . an occupational hazard.) If you make it work, I'm your customer.
Last edit: 29 Apr 2019 10:13 by Sagrilarus.
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29 Apr 2019 14:52 #296250 by Da Bid Dabid

Vysetron wrote: Meanwhile on the opposite end, Cindy's stupid elf just danced right through everything until she found a rotating room that spun against a wall. Fortunately, her rune let her game the search deck a bit, so she was able to sneak out and escape with her modest bag of goodies completely unscathed.

She then established the HUT. This game is amazing.


I refuse to live in a world where a rotating room into a wall isn't instadeath, one of my favorite ways to see someone go.

HUTs and their ilk are why DQ is so good. A simple note reading, Corridor, bitches! scrawled above an obscenely gluttonous score has sat in my box for several years unbeaten (escape on the final draw of the final turn, needing just the right tile to exit).
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29 Apr 2019 15:02 #296252 by mads b.

Vysetron wrote: Meanwhile on the opposite end, Cindy's stupid elf just danced right through everything until she found a rotating room that spun against a wall. Fortunately her rune let her game the search deck a bit, so she was able to sneak out and escape with her modest bag of goodies completely unscathed.


In the original Swedish version, you were not allowed to search a rotating room. So if you ended up in a deadend, you just died. It should never be played in any other way.
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