I must admit that first I thought you were all picking on the perspective and how tiny the train is against the size of the tunnel; then I looked down 
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The more I look, the more faith I lose in people.
Must be track for those dually-trains.
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Honestly, people.
It quite clearly says ‘magical’ on the poster.
Obviously train tracks in magical worlds aren’t going to be like boring real ones.
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Yes, but you have to “travel to the magical world” which implies we start in the normal world!
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It says nowhere that you travel there by train, though…
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Something similar made itself very apparent to me in 2020. The things I enjoy most are socialising and manipulating physical bits. BGA with people I know can offer socialising (at least in a real-time game); a solo game can give me the bits. But playing a solo game on BGA takes out both.
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My colleague is an avid 7 Wonders player on BGA after I introduced him the the physicl games. He’s always asking me if I want to play a game online at lunch. For context we sit back to back. For them, the efficiency of a program working everything out is king.
I politley decline and say that I prefer to play in person when possible and tehy’re welcome to join me in the lunch area for a game
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I get no significant satisfaction from online BGA. My best experiences of it are always real-time with people I know
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Pre pandemic when I was commuting to a course I bought the Race for the Galaxy app. It was good as I was brain mashed for my journeys home, so I just sat down and had the computer shuffle and I did all sorts of weird strays and combos. It’s now stopped being a card game for me and I’m much worse at the game. Dehumanising the experience has morphed it to something else so I can’t play with people anymore as it’s gone weird for me. Just shows to me the different approach between people in person and not.
I’ve also we seen @lalunaverde go off games much quicker after online play. I think the more mechanical nature of it makes any mechanical faults/quirks/weirdnesses become more apparent when it’s just you and a browser on a souless screen
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Hang on. Frosthaven is larger than Gloomhaven!?
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I bought the RftG app as I love the game, but have so far failed to get further than a couple of turns into a game. It just isn’t enjoyable without the physical activity and someone to play with.
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Yup - any physical virtues are removed, the socialising and thematic element is at least cut down even in a real-time game with audio chat, and both of those can carry me over rough spots in the game itself.
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I had always assumed that I would take quickly to computerized board gaming (in any incarnation). But it was during the pandemic isolation that I realized how much I dislike it. Tactility is one of the unsung virtues of our hobby – not deluxe components (in fact, I think plastic components are among the least satisfying tactile experiences), merely the way that chipboard tiles and cards feel in your hands and how wonderful it feels to plop down a wooden meeple to physically occupy the spot that your opponent desperately needed – what was more satisfying? The worker space denial? Or the tactility of that piece and how it physically occupies the time-space coincident that your opponent was relying on? It’s hard to say (even though I don’t really relish taking away my friends’ “fine moves”).
The other thing I found is that boardgaming, up to that point, had been a social pursuit; a reason to gather around a table with my friends and pretend to be enemies for 90 minutes. And so much of that is lost. Using real-time video and/or voice can help assuage the loss of direct human interaction, but that requires coordinating schedules which is tricky.
Additionally, I feel disconnected and out of touch with the game state when playing digitally; some implementations are better than others. My least favorite thing in gaming is reading a card, and then trying to find the spot on the board that the card references, and then trying to check if I have the piece needed in my supply to complete the card, and then trying to remember which of my opponents I needed to be worrying about in that part of the board, etc… In real life, this is as easy as glancing around the board – I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty good as moving my eyes slightly to the left. You put a computerized interface into the mix and suddenly I’m not good at moving my eyes slightly to the left. All the sudden, instead of a central nervous system, I’m relegated to using a mouse or a touch interface.
But then, during the pandemic, looking to get some use out of my dusty boxes getting dustier, I really discovered and learned to embrace solitaire gaming. I now see solo gaming as a discrete and distinct hobby to multiplayer gaming; they fill different needs. I actually discovered this by accident by playing Roll Player back in 2020 when deciding whether to cull it or not, because the multiplayer experience had left me rather disappointed. When returning to it solo, I realized that I could embrace my analysis paralysis rather than feel guilty about it. I decided to keep Roll Player, then, as a solo game, primarily (it may still get culled as a solo game, but not this year or probably next – but for legitimate reasons!)
Solo gaming gives me the opportunity to relish in the luxuriousness of this hobby as long as I want. I can play 1862 solo and spend 3 days in one stock round. And I can set up a game on my table and, given a free moment at work, spin around and poke and prod some pieces around while I percolate on the game state.
Solo gaming is therapeutic for me and has become one of the primary ways I decompress and, necessarily, get away from my screens – more important now than ever, that I work full time remote and, literally, my entire job is done via my work laptop.
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I mean, yeah. In an ideal world. Tabletop > Synchronous > Asynch = App (depending on mood and game). If I had a weekly tabletop, asynch would also seem frail to me.
I don’t.
Going to a pub with some friends is also better than logging into a forum to see what people typed 24 hours ago.
I’m here. I’m on bga. These things are still good, if not the best incarnation of what community and gaming can be. For me they keep the flames burning during a winter season of life.
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I was just telling people that our minds run faster than our bodies. An anxious mind runs faster than a calm mind. Doing something, anything, that forces your mind to slow down to the speed of your body is daily healing. Solo gaming definitely became that for me; I think I first tried it with Architects of the West Kingdom and the original fan-made bot for GWT and found things were happening in my body while I played.
I exhorted this person to do something like that, whether handwriting or drawing or stretching (I offered to recommend any number of solo games if needed). For me, moving bits of wood and cardboard around a table is a form of therapy.
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This is insightful even though, instinctually, I’m not sure you said anything I didn’t already know… just rendered it in English differently than I have seen or heard before.
I think it’s a great way of conceptualizing it and I will use this when talking to my kids about winding down at the end of the day. I usually tell them to color, draw, do a (jigsaw) puzzle, or something; and then they say, “I’m bored. Can I use the tablet?” and I squint and pinch the bridge of my nose and say, “let’s find something quiet to do instead.” and then less than 30 seconds later, I’ll be talking about how many toys, puzzles, and activity/coloring books they have and if they aren’t fun to play with, maybe we should give them to charity so that a kid without toys could appreciate it. Relevant Bluey: Mr. Monkeyjocks.
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This is one of the reasons I took up embroidery. I don’t seem to be able to relax by meditating or having bubble bath (or similar) because my brain will. not. pipe. down. I like to listen to podcasts but need to be doing something with my hands to be able to focus, so stabbing something thousands of times with a needle it is! Beats doom scrolling 
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Chopping vegetables works for me.
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I’m in the same boat. I generally listen to stuff while walking places or shopping. But if I’m doing stuff at home, building Gunpla, Lego, or jigsaws works well.
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