I've had a bit of experience with these programs, since I used Tabletop Simulator 2 years ago for online playtesting.

Although it's the go-to option for the social distanced gaming during the pandemic, I just haven't every had fun playing on Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia.

With games of any great complexity, it just makes the experience so much more awkward. I tend to like games with lots of table talk, too, and voice chat just doesn't work as well. I tried a game of Dune online, which I love in person, and it felt like a chore. The games might work online, but the magic just feels gone for me.

I feel like I'm just gonna have to forego complex board games for quite a while, until it's safe to play them in person. In their place I've been enjoying some simple games that work over video chat, like Codenames, Cards Against Humanity, or Yahtzee. Also online implementations like Yucata.de/en or Boardgame Arena. But it'll probably be quite a while before I enjoy a good chunky tabletop experience like Twilight Imperium or Root or something.

If you're feeling cooped up at home like Jeff and I, you're probably looking for some at-home activities. So, we figured we'd share some printable versions of our board games. You can also find digital versions of our games and thousands of other games on and .

Canvas (1-2p 30 min)

This is our newest game and has not been released

OVERVIEW

Create beautiful works of art to impress the judges and take home best in show at the painting competition. Canvas is a spacial puzzle, drafting game, where players layer sets of cards together to score points and create unique pieces of art.

ACCOLADES

• Logan Square Theater Playtest Party Winner 2019

LINKS

Crypt (1-4p, 25 min)

OVERVIEW

Send your servants into the Crypt to retrieve the family heirlooms your late-father (the King) horded for himself. Crypt is a set collection game with a unique dice bidding mechanism.

ACCOLADES

• Logan Square Theater Playtest Party Winner 2017

• Dice Tower Approved

LINKS

• (requires double-sided printing & dice)

Afternova (2-6p, 10 min per player)

OVERVIEW

A nearby solar system has been obliterated by a supernova. Now is your time to move in and extract the valuable resources from its unstable planets. Afternova is a strategic negotiation game.

ACCOLADES

• Dice Tower Approved

LINKS

Just curious, I only see one pending game to join on Tabletopia. To be fair, I don't have the paid version so maybe I don't see the premium game statuses. Or do most people only use solo mode?

Hi everyone. Together with my friend, we would like to test some games before buying.

I heared that you can play boardgames online via Tabletopia or Tabletop sim.

Which one would you recommend ? Pros / Cons would be appreciated

Has anyone experience with these platforms. Tabletopia looks much cheaper if you want to see if your mates will join you? however I know nothing about either. Any advice appreciated. Cheers guys.

Edit: Using steam

Edit: thanks for all the input. Great advice.

I have been using BGA on a daily basis for over a year now, and I am slowly running out of games to play. I mean, there are hundreds of games on there, but the ones I am drawn to (quick & entertaining games - Lama, Solo, Go Nuts for Donuts, 7 Wonders, etc.) I have played them all, and I want to try some new ones.

Tabletopia seems to have over 2k games on it, and a lot of games I want to give a try (Chai, Illiterati, Wizard Kittens, Unicorn Fever, etc. etc.) however, the interface is incredibly clunky, I can't seem to figure out *how* to play games I already know how to play on their website (Cubirds, for instance), and their matchmaking system is non-existent. Yet, they constantly have new games added and their variety of games is unparalleled.

What am I missing? What is the draw? Is it simply just easier to implement games on TT as opposed to BGA? Is there a reason they have so many more games? Is there an easier way to play games on their interface?

So I have not really delved into the multiplayer online board game side of things. Usually opting to use the dedicated game or app to play multiplayer. But obviously, the selection of board games is much greater in the 3 big boys.

Unfortunately, to gain competency enough to become a voice in the genre, a good deal of time is involved. (I do reviews, PR, and press in the strategy and strategy gaming genre) and as a single content creator, I do not have a huge budget of time to dive into all 3.

I want to focus a bit on the solo and solo variant games. As other than some prototype groups, I am involved with. I do not have a playgroup and scheduling is difficult (I love async)

TTS has a ton of solo and scripted games that i could dive into.

Tabletopia seems to get some really interesting stuff and I get a lot of notices about new cool stuff, but it does not look like there is any solo or scripted things.

Board Game Arena now with Asmodee power... Seems to be the lightest of the 3 but with a good deal of games. I do not know the solo abilities of it.

Where would I best be involved with spending my time into?

Edit: Out of the 3 not one person has mentioned anything about tabletopia that bodes poorly

All the good stuff is on BoardGameArena now. Oh wait. Nope.

All the good games were on Tabletopia before.

And I've spammed 30+ cards across a table with the wrong click of a mouse.

Now the games my friends group loves are showing up on BGA.

I do not click the wrong thing on BGA and I do not shut the game down for 10 minutes while I pick up stuff painfully. I may squint at a tiny piece of font, but I know what it means. At some point you cannot take back a move, and I'm really starting to appreciate that.

And BGA does all the countup.

Sigh.

Anyone got anything to talk me out of cancelling Tabletopia Premium?

tl;dr: TTS is better than TT because game quality is higher on the former, and games can be modified. TT is completely locked down, so if a game's implementation has room for improvement, oh well.

I've owned a copy of Tabletop Simulator for maybe 5-6 months now. With Tabletopia's recent Steam early access release, I jumped in to see what the fuss was all about. I had heard nothing but praise, especially for the app's interface, and especially in comparison to TTS. I had been eyerolling the "legit vs pirated" argument because it's simply irrelevant to me. "Pirating" a board game in this way is not analogous to playing it in real life for a ton of reasons best left for a more relevant discussion. Lo and behold, out of the "hundreds" (220 as of right now) of legit games, I was actually interested in maybe 10.

I booted up Imperial Settlers to see if it could possibly replace my physical copy, only to find that even though it's listed as 1-5 players, it is lacking the attack cards necessary for solo play.

Frustrated, I started Scythe, to see how it compares to the TTS implementation, only to find that, well, it kind of doesn't. According to the Scythe rulebook (which is present in the TTS version but not in TT), combat is resolved by secretly choosing the amount of power to spend on it, then simultaneously revealing the amounts. In the physical game, you do this by spinning a dial, leaving it face down until it's time to reveal. In TTS, you spin the same dial, except you keep it face up in your hidden volume before the reveal. In TT, there is no dial. You have a die that you put into your hand, and select it and hit the F key until it switches to the face matching the amount you want to commit to the battle.

To be fair, TTS has been fully released for quite some time now, and TT is still not actually done yet, but I guess the point I'm getting to is that I don't really see how people are considering TT a better digital board game solution than TTS. I mean, the whole table system is great, but other than that? The actual implementations of the board games leave a lot to be desired, even compared to many of the "pirated" implementations on TTS.

On TT, game publishers have to implement their own game. On TTS, Berserk Games will do it for you. There is a marked difference in the quality of the implementations. There is also a lot more leeway in the quality on TTS. For example, a Steam Workshop mod that has, say, low-quality scans, might have another guy upload his own mod consisting of just updated scans, intended for use with the older mod that has the components and everything else. You can load one, drop the other one in, then hit Save and have your own awesome mod with good graphics really easily, even if there isn't a complete one online. If one that you downloaded isn't exactly to your liking, you can mess with it until it is. Every game you play on TTS is completely malleable, much like in real life.

That doesn't seem to be the case with TT. Whatever you get, however you get it, is pretty much what you're stuck with. If a game says you use tokens to track health, you can't drop in a digital counter or d20 instead. You have to just use the tokens. Imperial Settlers is missing attack cards. A very easy fix, even if the original uploader fell off the face of the earth, is to simply add them in. But that isn't an option, no matter how incomplete an implementation is.

Any thoughts on using TTS vs Tabletopia? I have used TTS in the past for digitizing my games, but it seems that Tabletopia is more accessible for casual gamers. I was thinking about uploading my current game for testing to Tabletopia this time, but I haven't researched the process yet. Any arguments for or against it?

I don't always have time to play boardgames on weekdays, sometimes it is hard to even do it once a week. Yesterday I discovered Tabletopia and played a game of Brass: Birmingham just to try it. It takes some time to get used to it, but by the canal era I started to get the hang of it. It does seem to be very sparsely populated. I have never used TableTop simulator.

What are your thoughts on both of these platforms?

Which one is the better one?

Is the premium membership worth it?

So was trying tabletopia for the first time the other day, and every few minutes the camera controls (wasd, +/-, etc) would randomly stop working until I turned fullscreen on and off. Anyone know why this would be happening and how I can fix it?

I just noticed that have been added to this game by Lacerda himself, apparently they're screenshot of playtesting sessions on Tabletopia and it looks pretty cool.

It looks like you're going to need to manage your population and its needs as well as trade with Earth, as well as some other mechanisms.

Given how much I enjoy the theme, this looks really interesting, and I'm thinking it's going to go on Kickstarter with EGG relatively soon. How do you feel about another Mars themed game? I enjoy them a lot, and I enjoy Vital Lacerda's work too, so this just skyrocketed to the top of my hype list!

Just started playing around with Tabletopia, and I’m excited about trying games I’ve been eyeing. But I’m still not sure how much my experience on online is representative of an experience playing with the real thing.

I’ve played two games that haven’t impressed me (New York Zoo and Viceroy), one game that I might like in physical form (Roll Player), and one genuine hit (Calico).

What’s your experience? One on hand, there are a lot of variables missing like the social aspect and being able to take in the full setup easier. But on the other hand, if a game doesn’t interest me in this distilled format, it might not be a lasting investment.

I was considering using Tabletopia to test a game I'm working on, but as I read through the , I was having second thoughts.

The way it read, it sounded like Tabletopia would own my game and any assets I upload. It would certainly own the rights to make copies of my game and do what they want with it:

"7.2. You grant TABLETOPIA the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and publicly perform, your Workshop Contribution, and derivative works of your Workshop Contribution in connection with the operation and promotion of the Service, TABLETOPIA.COM account, TABLETOPIA.COM site, TABLETOPIA.COM Client and TABLETOPIA.COM Application."

I'm not fluent in legalese, but I don't like the sound of any of this.

Also, does Tabletop Simulator have any of these issues?

(Link to Tabletopia on Steam) Tabletopia is FREE while you have to pay for Tabletop Simulator.

With the Steam Winter Sale going on and all, wondering if anyone has used both and which one is better?

Tabletopia claims to have 300+ games in their library. Haven't had the chance to use yet because I'm at work right now, but just wondering what the community thinks. Thank you all in advance.

.

EDIT: After reading all the very informative information. I can see the pros and cons of both system. I do own TTS already and I use it for joining random games, as I dont have to pay to join their DLC games. It was a bumpy and clunky experience for learning TTS, but TT does sound good for a nicer UI and graphics experience. But Ill stay with TTS as I too dont like to pay monthly.

It has become very common for new games (whether released or in-development) to have a Tabletopia version. The two main benefits are 1) Tabletopia is free, so players can try your game with no risk, and 2) Tabletopia games get a single link that brings players directly to your game. The time investment on the player's side is minimal before they can start toying around.

I just got my game, , published on Tabletopia (yay!) and I collected four tricks that helped me with the platform:

I recorded a video with screen captures of all of these at .

1. Objects are automatically syncronized with the editor. Game pieces are managed through the Tabletopia Object Folder. When you create a new object, it goes through a publishing process that takes a few seconds. Then, in the setup editor, you can refresh the objects gallery to see it. No need to refresh the entire page.

2. Image size translates to real-life dimensions. Most of the virtual games on Tabletopia are based on real-life, physical games. When importing game pieces into Tabletopia objects, the image size translates into physical dimensions: 10 pixels are one millimeter, which means 254 pixels are an inch. This allows you to create an online version which is as similar to the physical version as possible.

3. Shift-click to pick multiple objects. Personally, I am used to image editing software, where left clicking typically operates on the canvas, and panning is done using the mouse wheel. However, Tabletopia is different: Left click pans around the play field, unless you are hovering above an object, in which case you will pick it up. This becomes tricky when the object is small or when you have many objects, such as a deck of cards. This is where shift-left click comes into play: it allows you to draw a box and select all of the objects in the box. I got into the habit of always shift-clicking when editing Worldbreakers, even when picking just one or two objects, just to make sure that I don't miss them.

4. Creating a deck of cards. Since Tabletopia is structured around single objects, creating a deck of cards requires some finesse. Briefly, you create a group in the Objects Folder, create a Card Deck object, and add the group to your game setup. Then you can use shift-click to select all the cards except one, and drag them to a "magic spot" on that last card. The process is a bit finicky -- .

So I recently set my board game prototype up on and am looking for "non-friend" people to play test and give me feedback. Its a 2-8 player strategy game but I want to play test it with 4-8 players. I can act as game master while you and your friends play, ask questions, and provide feedback. Can set up the meeting via Discord or Zoom. I'm in the Pacific Standard Time (California) timezone and can play test on most weekday evenings and on the weekends. If you'd be interested to play test with me and your friends, just leave a comment or email me . Thanks! I don't think violates any rules but very sorry if it does :/