The Best of Both Worlds: What BGA does better?

[mimmeli]

I really like being able to choose the pace. Sometimes I do think fast pace allows too much time lol, but it's a big difference from playing irl where it can get dragged out for what feels like forever.

[ChiefPointThief]

I would say the ability to create competitions/tournaments. The amount of planning, money, etc to do this irl would be extreme. I can think of a fun themed event, post it to my community, and have an event going w/ ppl from all over the world featuring tons of games within weeks after only an hr of planning and minimal resources.

[MarkSteere]

What BGA does better for me is provide opponents and plenty of them. I don't have anyone to play with in real life.

Going a little off topic here, but BGA has had a huge impact on my life. I've been designing abstract games since 1992. I only found out about BGA a few years ago, and I was able to learn programming basically from scratch (took a C programming course 40 years ago) and start programming for BGA. For my first game I took your Reversi program and swapped out the parts that didn't look like my game. I had a lot of help from the developers. I had no idea how the framework worked. After programming a few games, I eventually I started to see the big picture of the frontend talking to the backend, and the state machine. Still I'm a long way from a professional. I don't have the gift, the presence of mind. I can only program for a month or two before I burn out and need a long break.

Now I have 29 games on BGA - most programmed by me, and some programmed by others. I make moves all day, every day. I don't need any days off.

I'll mention a couple of my games here, if I may...

Tanbo (designed 1993)
Japanese for rice paddy. Game of roots and annihilation.
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=tanbo

Minefield - beta (designed 2024)
Square connection game. Prohibited glyphs prevent deadlocks. Serious, tense.
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=minefield

Narrows - alpha (designed 2026)
One of my most interesting mechanisms ever. No other game has its goal.
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=narrows