Playing board games online

I’m not a video gamer by any means (though some friends think it’s right up my alley with the amount of board gaming I do), so I was a little skeptical when a friend of mine suggested playing online at boardgamearena.com.

I recently signed up online, and I’m already getting sucked into it. I know, I know, it’s not the same as playing with people in real life, but I can already see how fun it is. The website is free and it keeps track of all your gaming stats.

The website is a great way to brush up on your skills for a particular game and be exposed to various levels of gamers. I also enjoy that each game has a tutorial, so it’s an awesome way to learn new games or play games that you normally don’t have access to. And of course, there’s an amazon link for each game in case you’d like to purchase it. There are over 70 board games on the website.

My first game on there was backgammon. I actually started a biweekly backgammon club at my old job so I’m quite familiar with the game. My friend was also helping me learn the new interface so it was nice to ease into online gaming with that. It took about a game for me to get used to how the entire site works, with how to move your pieces and where to click when it’s the end of your turn.

On the main page, you can select which games you like to play. And as online players open up a table for one of those games, it’ll pop up on your feed and you can join it. The person who opened up the table has the option to start the game whenever he or she feels. And then it begins. Each player is allotted a certain amount of time during each turn. Once a player starts going into the red, it’ll start to reflect negatively on that player’s stats. From the few games I’ve played of Stone Age, Puerto Rico and Takenoko, the timer is pretty reasonable and is there to keep the game moving.

One game I’m not familiar with is Race for the Galaxy. This game comes up every so often at game day, and truthfully, I have yet to grasp the gist of this game. This is how the conversation over the website started, as another friend said he learned how to play that game at boardgamearena.com. I will definitely be tackling that game next online.

Some of my close friends don’t actually own any board games, but greatly enjoy gaming whenever they come over. I’m going to suggest this website to them as they can play some of their favorite games online for free, plus when we do see each other in real life, the rules and game play will be fresher in their minds. I’m also super excited to be able to play across time zones with other friends either in real time or via turn-based games. With turn-based games, I believe you receive an email when it’s your turn, so players can log in when they’re free to take their turn.

So far people have been friendly on the message board, usually starting off the game with “GL” (good luck) and ending a game with “GG” (good game). It’s nice that game setup and cleanup is non-existent, but in the end, I will still enjoy playing with friends and people in real life. But boardgamearena is a great place to brush up on those skills so that I CAN CRUSH them at the next game day. Good game, indeed.