Not sure if the community is interested in deal posts and digital implementations so why not try both?
The Steam Summer Sale is on and it includes a bunch of digital boardgame implementations. Unfortunately the “boardgame” and “tabletop” user tags are a bit polluted so have to wade through the noise. Here are some standouts I see (USD prices), please add yours in the comments.
- Aeon’s End - $1.94
$14.99 - One Deck Dungeon $0.99
9.99 - Scythe - $7.99
$17.99 - Sentinels of the Multiverse $0.99
9.99 - Spirit Island $12.48
24.99(all time low I believe) - Tabletop Simulator - $9.99
$19.99 - Wingspan $9.99
19.99
Note that some publishers do matching sales on mobile so for example One Deck Dungeon is on sale on Android too.
Edit: relevant BGG forum post with some more
wanted to get Tabletop Simulator for a while, but don’t have any friends to play it with. is it easy to find like an open lobby or something?
When you launch TTS there is an option to browse existing tables and you may find something there. Another option is to find or organize games in some online community. For example the more popular bardgame podcasts often have Discord servers and they may have channels dedicated for this purpose.
I personally rarely use TTS for online games (I much prefer BGA or Yucata for that) but I still find it very useful for solo or even to just to get familiar with the components of a game before buying a physical copy.
Last year I had the extremely annoying situation that the Android version of Spirit Island required internet access to play anything beyond the demo version. I had bought a month’s worth of pro access, started a game at the airport then mid transatlantic flight i was done and couldn’t start another.
Other than that I’ll echo that it’s doable but cumbersome to play multiple spirits on a single screen.
oh the temptation! I was not aware that spirit island and scythe also are available digitally. Is it any good?
Over several iterations the Spirit Island app became good enough. However, as much as I love the game, it is immensely difficult to play in digital. Even when on my large monitor, I cannot show everything at the same time and I need to switch between maps and cards and I find it makes for much added difficulty. I have stopped playing the digital version. I have not played Scythe enough to be able to say anything about that app.
Thanks so much for sharing. I think spirit island is already complicated enough, might be really detrimental to try the digital version to see if I like the game.
there were some really decent TTS mods when I Last used TTS. in any case I highly recommend finding someone to teach you the game if you don’t know it already. I have more than once encountered people saying they didn’t enjoy the game only to change tune after getting a teacher. It is not even that the rulebooks are bad. It is just a lot of moving parts.
