Gaming at a distance

Image via WikipediaOh dear Crabro and I have finally dipped a successful toe into the wide waters of board gaming via the internet while chatting on Skype. It's not quite the experience that sitting around a table pushing cardboard is, but it's an interesting substitute.

We were due to be at a small, rather exclusive Con locally but for one reason or another couldn't get away until almost lunchtime at which point Crabro suggested that, rather than driving there (quite a few miles for him especially as he would be coming here in the evening too) we make another attempt at linking up on-line for a game or two.

Image via WikipediaWe rang off for lunch and some software set up and when we spoke again it was via Skype and for the first time via a sensible headset in my case rather than the speakers.  For the rest of the afternoon we were chatting almost as though we were playing face to face.

The Vassal set-up took a little longer but eventually it fell into place even though I was on my Windows games machine rather than the main Linux machine while he was using Linux as always. We first attempted Memoir '44 as we had played my real copy several times recently and thought we knew the rules. It worked and looked quite nice but we had a few problems understanding the interface especially as some expansions had been included which we had never encountered before. Decks of combat cards?

It having been a reasonably successful start, we had a look through the extensive list of modules but eventually decided to have a game of something we both know and own (one shouldn't of course play anything on Vassal that one doesn't own a physical copy of and in some cases this is ensured by missing card decks etc.). We therefore, had a couple of games of Carcassonne which I messed up as much on line as I do with the cardboard version. I can never get the hand of where and when to place farmers.

Grabbed from the Vassal session

Some things about the interface where nice (the ability to "lay down" a meeple for instance) but it felt rather glitchy and several times we accidently picked up all the tiles instead of just one and had placed tiles go missing. We got used to synchronising on the person with the undamaged copy to correct these things though and overall it was a successful start for on-line peer-to-peer board gaming.

Later on the group arrived for the usual Thursday evening session and I played Strozzi with ProfMudlark, MaOldie and Crabro and then a second game with the full group after Petra Pan and mrwendell arrived.

As soon as I opened and started punching it I realised that I had in fact played it before and quite liked it. A simple game of grabbing a ship or three and placing it at a port to gain points and bonuses by having the best ship in the port (highest number) and the highest position on the trade goods track of that port. There is a little more to it than that but not much. I won the first game convincingly but found a six-player version a little more difficult, coming second.

After that and another round of hot drinks we decided to play Fast Flowing Forest Fellers again as it is quick to learn and should be fast playing. Of course the Professor can suffer attacks of Analysis Paralysis in any game but he quickly accepted that this game needs to "flow" in keeping with the theme and on the whole it moved fairly fast.

I spent several minutes trying to be heard of assorted conversations as I pointed out the the boards were the wrong way round, it being no fun to push someone into a current that is going in the direction they want to go. In the end I gave up and relied on it dawning on the others eventually... Which it did after the initial few moves. Unfortunately mrwendell had negotiated his way through a sea of logs into a clear lead by that point so he was not overly pleased to have the game restarted.

Justice was served though as his lumbermeeple raced over the finish line in a clear lead from my second place chap (which he had unkindly bumped into a stream heading backwards when I was in the lead). The usual mayhem ensued at the mid-point as people repeatedly sent their opponents (and the odd log) back up-river. I'm not sure the others were as enthusiastic about the game as Crabro and me but then for me it loses something with too many players. I like the opportunity to choose between more than one meeple for example.

A good day's gaming anyway, despite shunning the Con and its free cakes.