2020. What a year, hey?
Whilst extra time at home wasn’t the plan for us all this year, it has meant more opportunities to play board games. Over lockdown, though, we missed playing with our board gaming friends who live in other households. For the first time ever, we turned to Steam and digitised gaming. It’s been quite an adventure.
Here are our favourite 4 digitised board games to play on Steam.
We love a physical game of Terraforming Mars, but the long set up and take down times means it doesn’t often get to the table. Of course this is not a problem with the digital version, which meant Terraforming Mars became a bit of a lockdown obsession for us.
Another bonus of a digital edition is that the game automatically calculates the number of resources you have, which makes strategising much easier.
Whilst Terraforming Mars has an impressive physical presence, I think the game looks even better on a screen. The digitised art really lends itself to the theme, and it’s a pleasure to play.
Another game that looks fantastic on the screen, although I think the physical edition does offer a better play experience. Being able to hold painted models is something you just can’t digitally replicate - but needs must, and being able to play Scythe with friends remotely is a joy.
The digital version of Scythe is very clean, very playable and mostly intuitive. There were only a few digital niggles. For example, it isn’t easy to find out what other player powers are. In a physical game I’d just lean over and have a look. But this kind of small detail is completely forgivable and understandable - its more a learning curve for predominantly physical players.
This is a brilliant option for a lighter weight game. Once you’ve acclimatised to digital tile picking, flipping, and stacking, you’re on your way.
Dragon Castle doesn’t look quite so impressive on screen as it does in person, but I think that’s due to the wonderful production quality of the physical version. It is still worthwhile investing in online, though. Perfect for 45 minute plays.
A classic. Brisk, simple, competitive fun. The digital version is certainly quicker than the physical. We managed 4-player games in under 20 minutes. Although that meant evenings of back-to-back games of TTR with rematch after rematch.
Be warned: if you leave the sound on, you’ll have the theme music in your head for days, weeks, months on end.
We also played the beta ofWingspanearlier this year. It was a little glitchy - as is the way with betas - but was a beautiful, relaxing experience. I do find dice rolling takes some getting used to when digitised, but beside that it was pretty smooth.Slated to come out in Summer 2020, so keep your eyes peeled for this one, it will be landing any day now I expect.
