Lords of Xidits Suggestions

[Cactus Tom]

I would really like to see an option, at least for turn-based games, that would allow open information (that is, show how many units every player has and bard count in the bastion). This information is completely visible from the game log (or from watching what happens in a real-world game). If you play turn-based, especially if you play more than one game, this would be almost impossible to remember without taking notes. (This would also simplify the census, since everyone would "show all".)

Hear, hear! It is REALLY ANNOYING to have to do this bookkeeping by hand when everyone playing is AT A COMPUTER.

[alexsim]

Even if you do not change the way the first two censuses are handled (though I hope you will), there really is no reason at all to ask players what they want to do on the final census (the game is over; what possible value could there be to hiding information?).

This only wastes a few minutes in a real-time game, but in an asynchronous game it could drag on for a week (especially since some players may think they can not win and lose interest in the game (to put it politely)).

[Jest Phulin]

Hear, hear! It is REALLY ANNOYING to have to do this bookkeeping by hand when everyone playing is AT A COMPUTER.

Realize, though, that BoardGameArena is developed with the intention of making it as close to physical play as possible. Licensing agreements with the various publishers often hinge on making it as close to a physical copy as possible. Yes, one can go back through the game log and/or take notes on the computer while here. They can also take notes with various writing/recording instruments when playing physical copies. However, if the rules state that some information is not public knowledge, that information should not be made available here.

It's similar to card counting in the United States. If you can do it in your head, it's fine. Using an external device is not.

[alexsim]

However, if the rules state that some information is not public knowledge, that information should not be made available here.

But the point is that the information is not hidden at all. Every unit gained and lost is known. Every bard played is known. This is just a better way of showing what is already shown.

Realize, though, that BoardGameArena is developed with the intention of making it as close to physical play as possible.

I would hope that the primary intention is to make the games as fun to play as possible.

I think most people I game with IRL would argue for playing the game with open information (the ones that wouldn't are probably the ones that could remember everything without it). To me the heart of the game is guessing what other players are going to try to do, not memorizing what units they have.

I can understand the argument for keeping things the way they are for real-time games. But I think this is an important change for turn-based play, where a minor hurdle becomes a major impediment.

It's similar to card counting in the United States. If you can do it in your head, it's fine. Using an external device is not.

For card games, knowing whether a critical card has been played or whether your seven of diamonds is good on the last trick is a key part of the game. But I would never, ever want to play a game like that in turn-based mode.

[Jest Phulin]

Clarification, then. When I said "card counting", I was referring to the practice of counting cards in gambling establishments, most predominately in playing Black Jack (21). But, yes, I can see a difference in trying to remember information in turn-based vs real-time games. But the interface shouldn't be different between the games, so if information is hidden in a real-time game (and hidden because of game design [place this item behind your personal screen, for example]), then it should be hidden in turn-based as well.

And, yeah, I'll concede that having fun is a major part of the development as well But "fun" is a tricky concept to define (it differs for different people), whereas "close to physical play as possible" is somewhat easier to define.

[Cactus Tom]

Hear, hear! It is REALLY ANNOYING to have to do this bookkeeping by hand when everyone playing is AT A COMPUTER.

Realize, though, that BoardGameArena is developed with the intention of making it as close to physical play as possible. Licensing agreements with the various publishers often hinge on making it as close to a physical copy as possible. Yes, one can go back through the game log and/or take notes on the computer while here. They can also take notes with various writing/recording instruments when playing physical copies. However, if the rules state that some information is not public knowledge, that information should not be made available here.

It's similar to card counting in the United States. If you can do it in your head, it's fine. Using an external device is not.

Personally, I don't like the memorization aspect of this game. If I wanted that, I would play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_(game).
But at least with a physical copy of LoX, if you and your friends don't like the screens and the strongbox, you can just leave them in the box. I would like to see an option to do that here.

[pikiou]

When I started the dev of LoX, turn-based games were not played much on BGA, so I kind of ignored it. LoX took me 100 hours of work as it is.
It resulted in being tiresome to play in that mode, but now it's too late. Any change to the code reflects to all active tables and I won't take the chance of crashing hundreds of tables ><