I play tabletop simulator (a steam game) with friends at least once a week. Especially during covid it was a great solution (with some rough edges and a somewhat prohibitive cost if you're trying to get 6+ people involved). I found that it worked surprisingly well with my tech-illiterate family. We could help people out when they got confused by grabbing their pieces, or pointing at the board, and if someone made a mistake the game doesn't lock you into it you can just move the pieces however you need to. That last part is something that's sorely missing in digital editions of board games.
I think the world really needs an open source tabletop-simulator, and while tabletop-club isn't quite there yet I'm really hopeful it will eventually surpass the "tabletop-simulator" game on steam. If you know your way around Godot or game-engines I highly encourage you to contribute to this project! I think it's legitimately important, as even my tech-illiterate family can grasp the concepts quickly. Much quicker than they grasp normal desktop metaphors.
It's also has a lot of potential as a tool to experiment with skeuomorphic interfaces and concepts like the ones in dynamicland.
Also personally I think that this has some interesting VR applications, as "desk scale" VR/cooperative-environments have a lot of potential for bridging the divide between full scale VR and regular computers.
Interesting! I am tech literate and TTS frustrated me and my group of friends so much we abandoned it.
We tried playing Zombicide, and we kept grabbing the wrong minis, or knocking stuff over, and the UNDO feature occasionally destroyed the state of the game. We spent more time battling the UI than playing the game. This was more than a year ago, so maybe these rough edges have been solved now, but they were bad enough to drive me nuts and so I ditched it.
I’m not a fan of Zombiecide or TTS. I think TTS would suit the Descent type games pretty well though since it be better for the minis.
But for most other games, there are much better web based implementations that work async too. BGA is probably the largest collection overall. But there are quite a few others if you are more interested in heavier games like 18xx, Splotter games. VASSAL works pretty well if you are into GMT. Some
free to play sites specialise in Euros.
The 3D is great if you have cool minis but otherwise most board games are better off with 2D implementations. It’s also more accessible.
I've played similar looking games (Zombies!!) and while it wasn't terribly ergonomic it was definitely playable. It's important to use a good grid, and to lock things like tiles in places if you're going to be putting stuff on top of it.
I doubt the UI has improved very much honestly. Maybe the pieces you were dealing with were just too small, or you were zoomed out too far? While things can occasionally be a bit finicky to grab we've honestly never had those kinds of major problems with it, although we mostly stick to simpler games like catan and dungeons-and-dragons.
Having played TTS and some official DLC, I can say that a well-made fan creation will beat the usability/scripting of official DLC almost every time.
I found it best to search the Steam Workshop for the most popular version of the game I wanted to play. I also personally prefer "Scripted setup" games which automate a lot of the setup, though I know some people prefer the more tactile setup.
Odd, all I can say is that that hasn't been the experience of my friend-group, or my 50 year-old tech-phobic cousin. I haven't played the official Zombicide module mind you, I'm mostly sticking to games that are free in the steam workshop.
I tried one of the 3d tabletop programs during lockdown, it was terrible trying to use a 2d mouse and a 2d screen to interact with a 3d enviromment, I really don't get how people can prefer it to boardgamearena.com
Tabletop Simulator in VR is a terrible experience IMO, interacting with cards and scripting is much, much easier with a mouse and keyboard than with VR. And it is really helpful in a lot of games to zoom out or zoom in on various things which is more inconvenient in VR.
I play tabletop simulator (a steam game) with friends at least once a week. Especially during covid it was a great solution (with some rough edges and a somewhat prohibitive cost if you're trying to get 6+ people involved). I found that it worked surprisingly well with my tech-illiterate family. We could help people out when they got confused by grabbing their pieces, or pointing at the board, and if someone made a mistake the game doesn't lock you into it you can just move the pieces however you need to. That last part is something that's sorely missing in digital editions of board games.
I think the world really needs an open source tabletop-simulator, and while tabletop-club isn't quite there yet I'm really hopeful it will eventually surpass the "tabletop-simulator" game on steam. If you know your way around Godot or game-engines I highly encourage you to contribute to this project! I think it's legitimately important, as even my tech-illiterate family can grasp the concepts quickly. Much quicker than they grasp normal desktop metaphors.
It's also has a lot of potential as a tool to experiment with skeuomorphic interfaces and concepts like the ones in dynamicland.
Also personally I think that this has some interesting VR applications, as "desk scale" VR/cooperative-environments have a lot of potential for bridging the divide between full scale VR and regular computers.