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An open source board game simulator is nice and this project looks quite far along, but I wonder if it makes sense to make it physics based, by far this is the
by auveair 4y ago
An open source board game simulator is nice and this project looks quite far along, but I wonder if it makes sense to make it physics based, by far this is the worst aspect of Tabletop simulator (the paid game) and it makes it really hard to play if you have any kind of impairment (visual, motor, etc).
Which is kinda sad, because turn by turn board games are the best for those kind of players, but there are no open source 2D board game software that I know of.
I'm not disabled, but it was just as painful for me to play on TTS anyway so I don't really understand the appeal.
- jhbadger 4y agoIf you are interested in non physics-based game simulators, the open source VASSAL predates tabletop simulator by many years and has support for many games. https://vassalengine.org/ https://vassalengine.org/
- renewiltord 4y agoTTS is pretty solid IMHO. I rather like it. But this is interesting to me. Thank you. Have you used it to playtest a novel game?
- jhbadger 4y agoI've made a couple of Vassal modules over the years, but of existing games, but yes, I could see it being useful for playtesting.
- mdtrooper 4y agois there a android version? Because some years ago I played it with jobmates and it was great.
- auveair 4y agoWow, I had never heard of it, thank you so much for the link!
- mNovak 4y agoThis is really interesting, never saw that before. I've long been thinking of starting a hobby project for a general purpose board gaming rules engine. Guess it's already there!
- ryanschneider 4y agoIf you are more interested in the rules/logic side of things there’s also https://boardgame.io/ https://boardgame.io/
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoAs a person who has used VASSAL, there is a lot of possible improvements that could be made.
- bspammer 4y agoThe nice thing about having a physics sandbox is that you can implement better interfaces on top of it using scripts, while still having the full flexibility to go outside the rules if your group feels like it. It's possible to implement a more accessible interface for pretty much any game you like. For example in TTS there's a Catan one that's particularly good. It randomizes and sets up the board for you at the start of the game with a single click. It will do stuff like automatically distributing resources to players based on the dice roll, which drastically reduces the amount of fiddling around with cards. I actually prefer playing Catan in TTS to the official PC port!
- Aeolun 4y agoBut taking the resource cards is the best part of the game (especially on a good roll). Why would you want to remove that?!
- the_af 4y ago> I wonder if it makes sense to make it physics based, by far this is the worst aspect of Tabletop simulator Definitely. Tabletop Simulator is (or at least, was about a year ago) so bad at this it was deemed unusable for my gaming group. Everyone kept knocking things over, which hilariously happened way more often than with an actual boardgame with physical pieces! It felt like playing drunk, but without the alcoholic fun.
- traverseda 4y agoHow do you even knock stuff over? Like the default lift height when you click on something raises it well above the other pieces or where it could really interfere with anything...
- the_af 4y agoI don't remember the details because this more than one year ago or maybe even two, closer to when the pandemic started. I do remember things getting knocked over, moving all over the place, shifting in unexpected ways, etc. In my opinion, if something like TTS doesn't work "out of the box" (no tweaking, no fiddling with settings) it's not a different enough experience from a clunky computer game, precisely the kind of thing I'm trying to get away from when playing board games...
- kaashif 4y agoI don't think I've ever knocked anything over in TTS, nor do I know how that would really happen. I've never changed any settings. I always recommend TTS as exactly what you say it's not - no tweaking, no fiddling. Interesting that our experiences with our respective groups differ so much! I wonder what the difference is - maybe the types of board games you played?
- the_af 4y agoI experienced these problems with Zombicide. It left such a bad taste I never bothered to try any other module. Maybe it's just Zombicide?
- shagie 4y agoI don't use TTS because it is physics based... which makes it awkward. That said... having it be "physics based" means that you don't need as much game rules implemented in computer logic compared to human logic. Consider the code for writing tic tac toe without a physics model. You've got valid position checks, win condition checks and so on. It's not bad (its tic tac toe), but its something that needs to be written by someone. In a physics based tic tac toe, you've got X and O and a # board. If someone plays a wrong move you say "dude, you can't do that." When you win, you say "tic tac toe, three in a row, I win." This allows a physics based model to implement a lot of game logic in meat space rather than in game code which in turn means that it can be made available more rapidly and doesn't need a programmer to convert game rules into business logic into code. --- I'd also suggest checking out https://www.yucata.de/en https://www.yucata.de/en (and other similar online systems). No, its not open source - its server hosted... but its really well done.
- joemi 4y agoI'm pretty sure you could do a 2D one without all the checks you mentioned. All you need really is the ability to move things and change the z-index.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y agoAs a matter of fact, I am struggling to think of any boardgames which have a 3d component. I am sure they exist, but a robust 2d representation feels easier and would still be applicable to 99% of existing games.
- wbl 4y agoStacking mechanics happen a lot.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y agoI was hoping to slide by with 2d + zordering, but by any other name, that is 3d.
- acomjean 4y agoI went to the Boston festival of independent games virtually the last couple years. You meet with independent game designers who show you/demo their games. It’s fun. For virtual demo game prototypes the table top simulator was used a fair amount. https://www.bostonfig.com/fest-homepage/ https://www.bostonfig.com/fest-homepage/
- ED_Radish 4y agoIts interesting you say this, since personally the physics are the reason I prefer TTS lol. Everything sorta moving like it would in a table makes playing so much easier once you get over the hump of manipulating the controls. But then again my use case is mainly RPGs rather than board games.