Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
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Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
1–10 of 40 posts
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#2It will be interesting to see whether the alrger iPad pro finds use as a game board; it loks like it's large enough for two people to comfortably play many traditional games, like Connect 4 or suchlike. This seemed like one of the most interesting possibilities for the ill-fated Microsoft Surface Table, but past attempts were just too large.
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#3I think the primary factors behind the growth of the tabletop industry are increased exposure, the drive for more in-person social interaction (as opposed to online videogames), and the introduction of a host of new complex mechanics that keep the games fun and interesting.
Tabletop games today are leagues ahead of Monopoly and many of the other games of old. Those classics have their place, but even with constant rebrandings (I personally own three varieties of Star Wars Monopoly) they're still just the same tired old mechanics with a fresh coat of paint. Nowadays we can play tabletop games that are cooperative, even story-driven, meaning there are no more sore losers and they're engaging enough to keep people coming back.
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#4One factor that I think has helped a lot is Kickstarter / crowdfunding, which helps mitigate the costs of a first production run.
Another factor is DRM in video games -- why spend 4x$60 on four licenses for a multiplayer video game and hundreds more on hardware, when you could just spend $50 on a board game and have it support four to six people?
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#5I for one used to be a fairly avid computer and tabletop gamer, but dropped them for more active hobbies. If I ever did go back to gaming, it would be tabletop, hands down. While LAN parties were fun, the constant hardware upgrade cycle, grind (WoW comes to mind), misogyny, and just general belligerence of multiplayer online doesn't hold a candle to an all-nighter of classic Civilization (and, no, I'm not talking about Sid Meier's).
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#6Given the general hackerish-nature of Go, it's perhaps not too much of a stretch to share with you my game Chakra, which is a variant of Go played on intersecting rings with a movement rule
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chakraboardgame/chakra-...
We're working on an online playable version, which I'll share with HN once we have the kinks ironed out. It's a good hacker game, the core player group has barely scratched the surface of understanding the strategy involved in a good game. Decent AI target as well... sometimes I think about multi-dimensional versions of the game, which would be only of interest to AI, but perhaps the kind of thing they'd appreciate.
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#7I think it's because baordgames are happy to cater to smaller niches - they don't need big runs to break even. The number and veriety of new board games boggle the mind. And they're more sociable.
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#8As an avid player of both video games and board games, I'll say one thing: video games have really fallen afoul of the diminishing marginal utility of interesting decisions. A 2-hour game of Agricola, to me, has far more interesting decisions packed into it than 20 hours of Civilization V, despite having orders of magnitude fewer options per turn and turns per game.
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#9It will be interesting to see whether the alrger iPad pro finds use as a game board; it loks like it's large enough for two people to comfortably play many traditional games, like Connect 4 or suchlike. This seemed like one of the most interesting possibilities for the ill-fated Microsoft Surface Table, but past attempts were just too large.
Augmented reality will merge board games with electronic.
Re: Table-top games are booming in the video-game age
#10As an avid player of both video games and board games, I'll say one thing: video games have really fallen afoul of the diminishing marginal utility of interesting decisions. A 2-hour game of Agricola, to me, has far more interesting decisions packed into it than 20 hours of Civilization V, despite having orders of magnitude fewer options per turn and turns per game.
>despite having orders of magnitude fewer options per turn and turns per game.
You say despite, but I think that's half the reason why the decisions are more interesting.