So we did a couple of these threads, game specific. But those tended to morph into a handful of different games each, as well as revolve around the same few players who jumped onto whatever the first game was. I’m opening a new, general thread in the hopes that we can consolidate into one place and make it easier to track what is going on and hop in / hop out.
Want to join some asynch games with Tekeli folks? Follow the thread to keep track of when things are starting up.
Want to play a game? Post a comment! Game, hosting site, your username, and number of seats.
Generally, boardgamearena.com and yucata.de appear to be the most robust platforms. Some others that are around with smaller libraries or more aged interfaces:
I feel like the game-specific threads was a better way to handle this. Everyone can get a list of new threads, and it’s very easy to dismiss them and not think about them anymore if it’s not a game you’re interested in. I feel like having everything in the same thread will not only increase the amount of notifications that you don’t care about (as more people post about a game that you’re not interested in) but confusion around if a game has been “filled up”, who is part of what game if there are multiple open seats (so to speak), etc.
On the Board Game Barrage Discord server there is a phrase, ‘klundable’ to describe whether you can join a game, click around and work it out. Haiclue is highly Klundable, Lost Ruins of Arnak is not (as I discovered).
I’m interested in Grand Austria Hotel, but I have no idea what it is. I’m guessing it’s not one to try without some rules knowledge?
Triqqy is shocking. However, it has Ra, Tigris and Euphrates and Through The Desert so it’s worth putting up with.
I hear you, and that makes sense. But let’s try this out?
Specifically, I’m thinking of a Keyflower thread, then someone brought up Troyes, and eventually we moved to Beyond the Sun. It worked for us, but in the end it felt rather exclusive and underground.
BGA:
Innovation (also on isotropic)
Tash-Kalar
Race for the Galaxy (also and preferably on app)
Through the Ages (also and preferably on app)
Res Arcana
I don’t understand what “worked out the asynchronous equation” means, but yes, Vassal can be played by an exchange of turn recordings (oddly called “logs”), by email or Discord or whatever. I find that usually gives me a better view of other players’ turns than text logs on browser platforms.
Since the stated goal of the thread is to track what’s going on, I’ll just note that Captbnut and I have started a game of Tash-Kalar, thanks to this thread. A game I haven’t played in ages. Cheers Acacia!
No, it’s free. There’s an investment in learning the platform, though. Unlike the Yucata/BGA thing, it’s a program you download, then you find and download the Pax Pamir module which the Vassal console will “play.”
Playing asynchronous involves emailing a log file to each other between turns, or creating a common web folder where we upload the log. On your turn, you download the log, load it into Vassal, and then take your turn. Then you export the log and pass it on.
Oooh, I’d love to since I haven’t played Pax in a bit. Unfortunately, I’m eyeball-deep in schoolwork and don’t know how quickly I’ll be able to learn Vassal. I’ll keep you posted!
Vassal is not hard to use. The main speedbump is that it doesn’t run on any mobile OS.
In a four player game, once you get used to the flow of load a log, click through it, load the next log, click through it, load the next log, click through it, start a log, take your turn, end the log and send it on, you are good, unless you are like my mum and can’t handle files on your computer (a dozen copies of every family video on her hard drive, because she downloaded them every time she watched them).
I do this all the time! I’ve got out of the habit of considering local storage anything other than transitory. I just use the ‘Downloads’ folder for everything. Well, not quite, but it’s heading that way.
