X-COM Enemy Unknown FFG boardgame.

Michael Barnes wrote: If this does indeed work, it could revolutionize solo gaming.

But this crosses the the line where even I say "why the hell don't you just play a computer game?"

Why don't you just play XCOM, FFS.

And I can assure, 99% of the video/computer gaming world would feel the exact same way. And a large percent of board gamers too.

I don't agree with this at all.

Lets put it this way - I enjoy Sergeants Miniatures Game which is a board game miniatures game hybrid. There's an event deck of sorts in it that must be manually sorted and seeded every time you play based on the scenario. So for scenario 1 it might say use cards 55-60, add in cards from this expansion 10-20, whatever. I would jump on an iPad app that would just let me select the scenario and then I could tap the screen and reveal the card each round.

Likewise, If I could get an X-Wing app that would let build my roster and then I could just use the App to reference all of my cards - why not? This would also fix the stupidity of having to buy multiple Rebel Aces to get multiple Chardaan Refits and crap like that.

If you were playing a solo game with some AI programming to it such as the COIN games or something like that - why not have an App that handles it for you? It would streamline the game and make rote motions go faster.

In social deduction games you could have every player possess an app that would "deal" you your role. No more worrying about cards/tokens getting marked and revealing your role. You could also play it anywhere.

Tracking clicks/link/mu on an app would certainly work in Netrunner and reduce analysis time.

Arguing against the possibility of harnessing the power of an app is like saying you can't use a calculator to total your score in Thunder Alley ("You can do it with paper!")


I can't wait for the day when we're playing on huge tablet tables and designers can utilize this to their advantage. I can imagine a reinventing of games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective where evidence, case files, pictures, all kinds of media can set the mood and be used in ways we can't now.

charlest wrote: I can't wait for the day when we're playing on huge tablet tables and designers can utilize this to their advantage. I can imagine a reinventing of games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective where evidence, case files, pictures, all kinds of media can set the mood and be used in ways we can't now.

I currently play Formula De on a TV, and while it was not designed for it, I do believe you are correct, it could be an awesome transition for boardgames. But it has its limits. Heat, noise, requires electricity, harsh backlighting, and most importantly viewing angles.

I'm curious...how much demand is there, really, for a tactical military or pseudomilitary board game? One that plays like a miniatures game or video game, but is a board game?

For all of you who lament a game that is a board/mini game that requires a computer or iPad, allow me to tell you of the worst fucking game I have ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever played: EX ILLIS
www.ex-illis.com/

Fucking pariah. Incredible models and the battle boards are supremely awesome, but the game that they support is utter, total shite.

bioball wrote: And I'd say this is more ballsy than RISK LEGACY, any of the LEGACY series still play the same as the basegame both in rules (mainly) and on a meta-level how you play the game. This game is trying something new. Its trying to use that fact that almost everyone now has a smart phone.

So why not try to use the new social habit in a game?

A few comments:

Barnes is completely correct. X-COM is not "trying something new." Let's get that right. "Smartphone-enhanced" games - I just threw up in my mouth a little - aren't some new kid on the block. Hasbro even did an entire line of them a few years ago (the Zapped series). As Barnes previously noted, in 2014 there's nothing revolutionary about this.

Another thing: games that require a smartphone app to play aren't fundamentally different from any other games that insist upon some kind of electronic device to function. Essentially, this is the early '80s and its wave of gimmicky electronic board games all over again; games willfully abbreviating their lifespan by requiring something as transient and ephemeral as technology in order to be playable. Part of the appeal of board games is the lack of limiting factors that are required to play; electronically-enhanced games, be it X-COM in 2014 or Electronic Stratego in 1982, only impose more restrictions on the gamer.

Also - and this is an admitted personal preference - I like board games because they give me a break from my iPhone. Not only that, but I generally intentionally leave my phone in another room and/or refuse to look at it during a nice long night-o'-games with good friends. On a purely subjective level, I really don't want to constantly be shoving my nose into my phone while playing a board game. That's literally the opposite of what I want out of a board game. The more we integrate our daily lives with the insidious slow creep of technology, the more I value the few times when I'm permitted to part with it.

Re: this being more "revolutionary" (people throw that word around all too casually) than Risk: Legacy - I think that's a pretty tough claim to stake, although both it and X-COM are games with self-limiting lifespans. My two cents is that the idea behind the Legacy games is the more left-field, innovative concept, simply because of how aggressive it is in disrupting deep-seated notions among board game collectors about treating your games like objets d'arte. No. Write on it. Rip shit up. Fuck your cardsleeves.

Last reason: fuck FFG.

Charlie, you're misreading me. "Helper" applications like that are fine and quite frankly I don't know why there aren't MORE of them. One for X-Wing in particular would be GREAT.

But we're talking about games that are leveraging apps as a) selling points and b)devices to drive gameplay and mechanics. That's an entirely different issue.

If I look at XCOM and say "hey, this is just a deck of cards fancied up into an App, then I don't think that's innovative or particularly interesting. Regardless of the flashing alien heads, klaxons, and stern voices that it will almost certainly include.

Michael Barnes wrote: If I look at XCOM and say "hey, this is just a deck of cards fancied up into an App, then I don't think that's innovative or particularly interesting. Regardless of the flashing alien heads, klaxons, and stern voices that it will almost certainly include.

Oh, well then sure I guess I agree with you. I assume it's going to simplify and streamline things, because if it doesn't - then why would FFG do this? They're not stupid, they know this will anger a lot of people (BGG already has threads questioning the lifespan of the game being tied to an app).

I assume it's going to handle a more complicated AI than we've been able to previously experience in board games. Hopefully an AI that can take some input from the current game and react or adapt. That's my hope at least.

If they're just transferring a deck of event cards or AI cards to a screen, well then yes, fuck that. I have more faith in Eric Lang than that.

I can't wait for the day when we're playing on huge tablet tables and designers can utilize this to their advantage. I can imagine a reinventing of games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective where evidence, case files, pictures, all kinds of media can set the mood and be used in ways we can't now.

You just lost me. I'd much rather see an app that can read a traditional board via camera and issue commands based on it. In the interim an app that presents one of 75 coordinated attacks, even if blind, would be a fine solution that could be delivered today. It would be the equivalent of ordering an event deck in 75 specific orders that make sense. Essentailly deluxe scenarios that don't require prep.

This game sounds like baby steps, but in the right direction. Make this platform agnostic and give it the deluxe FFG presentation and you'll have plenty of gamers preferring it over playing a big game on a small screen.

S.

How is this really any different than Dark Tower/Omega Virus, when you get down to it? And Inferno is correct, there have been "smartphone enabled" games already on the market for years in mass market. I also agree that this is about the same as games that let you do "innovative" things like play along with a videocassette.

Thinking it over some more and specifically what I said to Charlie, my interest in smartphone/tablet applications or tools at the gaming gaming table is directly proportional to the complexity of the game or its density of components. Yes to apps to aid playing X-Wing or Magic Realm. But do you really need any of this crap for a Pandemic clone?

As far as the AI goes, there's only so sophisticated it could really be. If you're inputting board positions, there's likely a simple routine it performs to provide a response. Which, realistically, isn't any different than the triaging/"if-then" manual AI mechanics we've seen in plenty of games. I think some of you guys are thinking that this is going to have some kind of very reactive AI that will simulate a human player making decisions.

But then, why not just have a player control the damn aliens?

A very reactive AI is fully in reach with current hardware and sensing devices. It's just a matter of embracing it. There's thousands of videogames doing this now. Add a plush interface that also prevents piracy and you have one hell of a product.

The difference between this and Dark Tower/Omega Virus is no dedicated hardware and its associated production costs.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: This game sounds like baby steps, but in the right direction. Make this platform agnostic and give it the deluxe FFG presentation and you'll have plenty of gamers preferring it over playing a big game on a small screen.

S.

Small steps to what though? What is the end-game so to speak?

Sagrilarus wrote:

I can't wait for the day when we're playing on huge tablet tables and designers can utilize this to their advantage. I can imagine a reinventing of games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective where evidence, case files, pictures, all kinds of media can set the mood and be used in ways we can't now.

You just lost me. I'd much rather see an app that can read a traditional board via camera and issue commands based on it.

S.

I'm talking about the evolutional end point that Von Tush is asking about. A digital tabletop could supply endless amount of maps, users could create dungeons for something like Descent and you could download them. You could reconfigure and mod components (user created modding would be amazing).

You could also fix errata on boards/tiles such as the Thunder Alley board errata with just a patch.

Imagine Gears of War where you select the scenario and the tabletop configures the tiles for you so you don't have to worry about. We'd still be using miniatures, rolling dice, etc.

Imagine Cave Evil with the digging being programmed in so it materializes the new tile/contents for you. Add in atmosphere and maybe some visual effects and it'd be amazing.

"Why not just play a video-game?" Because it wouldn't be the same thing.

The difference between this and Dark Tower/Omega Virus is no dedicated hardware and its associated production costs.

But the production costs of developing this app- along with all art, multimedia, AI, testing, continued support and all is likely WAY the hell more than it cost to make a cheap battery operated electronic device. Let's not kid ourselves here. This is just as much if not more expensive than making a plastic toy. Especially given the reach of FFG.

A very reactive AI is fully in reach with current hardware and sensing devices. It's just a matter of embracing it. There's thousands of videogames doing this now. Add a plush interface that also prevents piracy and you have one hell of a product

And a matter of paying for it and a matter of convincing both board gamers and video gamers that this is something they want. I'm seeing a lot more "Oh boy! XCOM!" than "Oh boy! I can use my phone with this game!"

I think what you've really got here is one hell of a confused product, misaligned with two market segments and without a argument. Why do I need a board game with a very reactive AI? I mean, shit, I can play fucking Fire Emblem on the DS and get a reactive AI in a board game. Or I can play any number of IOS board games- wargames like Panzer Corps or board game adaptations. I'm not convinced of a need for this at all, least of all for a genre of game that is already five years past its sell-by date.

Maybe FFG needs to produce one of those informercial-style spots that shows black and white footage people "trying" to play a board game, fumbling cards all over the place and shaking their heads in frustration. And then it cuts to color footage of people playing and enjoying XCOM with their phones in hand. THE NEW WAY!

The irony, of course, is that the game STILL looks like a cluttered pile of cardboard trash with overwrought illustration all over everything and components everywhere..

I just hope that this junk doesn't interfere with the 3Q Through the Desert reprint.

Imagine Cave Evil with the digging being programmed in so it materializes the new tile/contents for you. Add in atmosphere and maybe some visual effects and it'd be amazing.

Mr. Do. Or, for the less enlightened, Dig Dug.

Or any number of digging games on IOS.

Everything you just described is already available on IOS board games. User modified content? THE FUTURE! Circa 1992.

Scratch XCOM; I've updated my concept of Personal Boardgaming Hell to be whatever the fuck charlest is talking about.

Michael Barnes wrote: Imagine Cave Evil with the digging being programmed in so it materializes the new tile/contents for you. Add in atmosphere and maybe some visual effects and it'd be amazing.

Mr. Do. Or, for the less enlightened, Dig Dug.

Or any number of digging games on IOS.

Everything you just described is already available on IOS board games. User modified content? THE FUTURE! Circa 1992.

Except I want to play a board game.

Hell, you can masturbate too instead of having sex. You won't get rejected and it won't cost you anything so why ever have sex?

I play iOS board games, and they're ok. Not a substitute for the real thing.