Game Idea- Conflict of Heros : Awakening of the dead

Having played a couple of games solo and one game against Tom R, I am convinced that it wouldn't be to hard to make some Zombie scenarios.

Perhaps start on the farm map with a small group of survivors fending off a couple of groups of Z's.
and have the conflict escalating, involving local militia, and so on, until; we get to the full blown military clean up of an urban area

Subbuteo

Whilst taking a stroll to B&Q a happened across a subbuteo tournament.

Below are a few snap i took before heading back on my way.

Werewolf Intro Vid

On-line board gaming

Starting the Werewolf game on facebook has got me thinking about other forms of on-line gaming.

More and more applications are popping up that allow you to get your gaming fix on-line. I will list the ones i have come across and give some thoughts on them.

Play By E-mail
I wonder if anyone still plays chess by post anymore? well at it simplest playing by e-mail mirrors this tried and tested method of distance gaming. There are some big draw backs to this however. How could you play a card game? well there are ways! read on.



ACTS (Automated Card tracking system)
http://acts.warhorsesim.com/index.asp
ACTS allows you to play games which have a card based system, including Hammer of the Scots and Twilight Struggle. It facilitates the card play and dice rolling but doesn't handle the board.
When Craig and I tried a game of TS using this, we quickly found that is caused confusion when we both ended up with different board positions on the spreadsheet we had been using to track the game. Worth a try but I think that is falls short of a complete solution for distance gaming.


VASSAL
http://vassalengine.org/community/index.php
This is a smart program which allows live play and play by e-mail. The program was originality designed to allow people to play complex war games, specificity Advanced Squad leader (If you think you have seen a complex game this resets the bar!)
But has evolved to include lots of games including:

• Carcassone
• Car Wars
• Hammer of the Scots
• Memoir 44
• Pandemic
• Twilight Struggle (Pictured)

The program gives you a virtual representation of the game board, cards, dice and bits. Play by e-mail is handled by one player taking their turn then e-mailing the saved game file to their opponent. VASSAL keeps all the important hidden information hidden so this is defiantly a step on. However this is best suited to games which have a "traditional" turn structure and would grind to a halt trying to play a game which require players to interrupt or interact.
Live Play looks very promising (I haven't had a chance to try yet)
All sounds great doesn't it, however before you dash off and download (tho i would love you to) i should warn you that the interface isn't very user-friendly and there is a fairly limited player base. That said, i would love to get some Twilight struggle going!

Brettspielwelt http://www.brettspielwelt.de
Tonnes of euro gaming goodness going here including:

• Carcassone
• Lost citys
• Manhatten
• Niagra
• Citadels
• San Juan
• Settlers of catan

Live gaming only, However the user interface is not very friendly and mostly in German, I gave it a go and found it quite difficult to navigate. see what you think. Also part of me wants to play people i know, somehow is just isnt the same beating a faceless German (well that might be a different fetish entirely!)

Facebook

Here, I believe, lies the future of on-line gaming. If you ignore all the zombie's vs vampire i have super poked your chocolate hatching Christmas tree nonsense. There is some excellent gaming going on. you can find:

• Chess
• Scrabble, with an official version available now that the Hasbros lawyers have had their ways with scrabulus.
• Connect 4
• Poker
• Go
• Backgammon
• Diplomacy
• Guillotine
  
• Werewolf :-)

The applications most people can pick up intuitively and the games "fit in" with your other facebook stuff. There is a lot to be said for having everything in one place. It is much easier to invite some to a game of something on a facebook app, than convince them to download some special software and send e-mail back and forth.
It is mostly traditional gaming fare at the moment but I don't think i will be long before we see some more euro games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassone, well I have my fingers crossed.

Until then there are some other sites worth mentioning which carry a few more games

• http://www.daysofwonder.com/ for Ticket to ride
• http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ for Tigris and Euphrates
  
• x-box live has Carcassone and Settlers i am told
  
• http://www.cosmicencounter.com/ for cosmic encounter (pay to play with extra aliens)

Want to get a game going, drop me a line!

EDIT
10/2/09 found a Settlers of Catan app on face book! Result

Facebook Werewolf

I am going to try and to get a game of werewolf going run entirely through facebook.
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/werewolf.html
normally this is a party game but i know that some of the folks on bgg run regular games.

Nothing ventured.....