Burn down your game room! Board games with online play

oeb · 01-02-2011 02:19PM #1

There seems to be quite a few places where you can play board games online with people. Lets make a list!

Dominion
(A Card game by Rio Grande games).

http://dominion.isotropic.org/

This is a pretty minimalist interface, but it works great once you get used to it (Which will take about half a game). It's easier to use than BSW, and it also supports all the expansions and promo cards.

As mentioned, also available on BSW

Carcassonne
(A tile laying game by Rio Grande)

http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Carcassonne/

It's available on BSW.

Ticket to Ride
(A train game by Days of Wonder)

http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/play/

This game requires the use of a code found inside the printed manual that came with your copy of the game. Days of wonder have also let it be known that Small World will be added to their online system sometime this year!

Notes
BSW, or BrettspielWelt is a german java client that supports a pretty large amount of games. Settlers, Puerto Rico, Pandemic and a bunch more. Alot of people have a love hate relationship with it though. There is a geeklist about it on Board game geek here

Mother Duck · 01-02-2011 05:09PM

Great idea!

I recently start playing Memoir 44, and found that Days of Wonder have an online version (you need to download a client...but it is free!) You can find that here

Also, I have started messing around with VASSAL - an open source engine which allows you to have a kind of virtual table space online...it's pretty well put together...the drawback is that you will need to arrange someone to play with, rather than just jumping onto a server and finding random players...but it's still worth a shot.

Vassal page and (long) list of games supported

I've only used VASSAL for Memoir '44 so far, but it works great...as I said, its more a virtual table space...so the rules of the game aren't enforced by the engine - you still need to figure out how many dice to roll, whether a move is legal etc. I think this keep you a lot more involved in the game.

Looking forward to trying out Dominion!

MD

Mikey23 · 02-02-2011 02:13PM

Cheers for those OP.

Have been playing Landgrab (a free Risk clone) on and off for a few years. Really good game engine & selection of maps, customisable rules, but the occasional niggling issue is turning me off it a bit.

oeb · 02-02-2011 02:55PM

Mikey23 wrote: »

Cheers for those OP.

Have been playing Landgrab (a free Risk clone) on and off for a few years. Really good game engine & selection of maps, customisable rules, but the occasional niggling issue is turning me off it a bit.

That reminds me, there is a pretty decent game that's basically Risk (But played on different maps). It typically works out at one turn per day.
Fellowship of Luca

The content of the site is all nonsense, I don't know if they are trying to be serious and using the game to further some kind of political agenda, or if they are just trying to establish some kind of 'feel' for the world, but either way, the game is good.

ShooterSF · 02-02-2011 03:11PM

Comic Encounter

http://cosmicencounter.com/screens/home.html

It's free to play a basic set of aliens and charges you if you want bigger sets. This is one of my absolute favourites. Probably as I can never get 3 or 4 people willing to play it in real life.

The game is simple to learn and the website even provides AI and a tutorial. Games don't tend to last long either.

orathaic · 04-02-2011 02:04PM

dominoin there is brilliant, but i still find my first love is diplomacy:
http://www.webdiplomacy.net

i also find it odd that board games are grouped with toys...
a game and a toy are two very different things. And now that we're talking about online board games, isn't that a computer game by definition?

I mean rpg's as a computer game genre are basically ports of table-top role playing games to PC with graphics to replace our imagination... yet they don't get stuck in with toys for some reason. Am i right?

ShooterSF · 05-02-2011 12:47AM

orathaic wrote: »

dominoin there is brilliant, but i still find my first love is diplomacy:
http://www.webdiplomacy.net

i also find it odd that board games are grouped with toys...
a game and a toy are two very different things. And now that we're talking about online board games, isn't that a computer game by definition?

I mean rpg's as a computer game genre are basically ports of table-top role playing games to PC with graphics to replace our imagination... yet they don't get stuck in with toys for some reason. Am i right?

In fairness it's not like the traffic in here in so hectic that we need to split them

Mother Duck · 06-02-2011 03:58AM

Memoir '44

Just to follow on from my post above...I've tried out the DoW online '44 system and I have to say it blows the socks off Vassal...the drawback is that eventually you need to top up your 'gold' which diminishes each time you play, but it's great fun...try it.

Also...

Mr. Jack

I haven't played this, and in fact, don't know how to play it...but it has been on the radar as one to buy for the past while...It's a 2 player deduction game, rules are available on BoardGameGeek and you can play online here!http://mrjack.hurricangames.com/

MD

Burn down your game room! Board games with online play

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