Please for the love of all things good, include a "Undo" move button in your games.

[Trey Chambers]

It should be a requirement.

[Phoxtrot]

Why is this in the Alpha forum?

To the more immediate topic: undo is not easy to add to many games, and it's impossible in rare cases (Dobble/Spot It comes to mind). I've added it to most games I've worked on, but some games are designed in a way that sharply limits how much undo you can do -- for example, Daybreak allows players to act in any order at any time, and one player's actions often impact what another can do.

While most games won't have those troubles, there is not a universal solution that BGA can apply across games. Undo has to be implemented on a per-game basis. This is something the comments on that suggestion largely do not understand.

I think it kinda makes sense in Alpha because this is often something that should be thought off (not necessarily implemented) very early in the development of the game.

a) Indeed it won't apply (or not fully) to games where players can react and do meaningful things when it is not their turn. Or if there is no turn at all.


b) For games with well defined non-simultaneous turns and no out-of-turn actions (most games), there should be a confirm/undo button at end of turn. This can be always present for games with big turns (like through the ages) but should preferably be available through an option for games with short turns. If the turns themselves are big and structured then an "go back / undo" is needed (nicely done in Automobiles for instance).

c) For games where everyone plays at the same time but without impacting the other players in any way during that phase (think Railroad Ink, or the phase selection in RFTG, 6 nimmt,...) there should be some mechanism. But it is tricky.

I think that Railroad Ink is a good compromise that can be applied to many Roll and write games :
1- you do your turn hidden from the prying eyes of everyone else. You can use undoes or start over from scratch.
2- when done, you have to confirm your turn (makes sense as each turn is relatively big)
3- Once your turn is confirmed, you can see what the others who have confirmed their turn have done (nice). The trade off is that you are then no longer allowed to change your mind.

Other games opt instead for keeping the information secret until everyone has done their turn (with or without an explicit confirmation step).
A very nice thing to do with that approach is to allow players to change their mind as long as the game is still waiting for someone else.
This alone, of course, won't save you from a miss-click if you are last to complete your turn.

note: It is often used for games where the decision is a single click. If the turn is more complex than that, you might need an explicit "unconfirm" button and reactivate the timer for the player (you could even make a case that the time spent between confirm and unconfirm should be retroactively counted as well but that could be very frustrating and might not be possible to implement properly anyway).

[nickselesnya]

+1 I play a lot on mobile and sometimes I just need to undo my action. Not to mention that quite often buttons don’t work properly and I have to keep trying but it’s okay.

[Kayvon]

Undo is not a box you check to just make it happen. On many games, it's the most complicated part of development and testing. Furthermore, once implemented, undo is is very bug prone. As such, it's often avoided by game developers.

I understand it's a very highly requested feature, especially by those who don't appreciate the effort required to implement it. I would offer that BGA games are usually open for anyone to contribute to, so if you feel strongly about it you can add the feature yourself. I suspect, however, that the real ask is for someone to just volunteer dozens of hours of time to do it for you, which isn't entirely reasonable.

[TheInquisitor]

I would offer that BGA games are usually open for anyone to contribute to, so if you feel strongly about it you can add the feature yourself.

Thank you for shedding light into the development process. Does that mean all of the code for all BGA games (at least those that are in an alpha/beta/released state anyway I presume) are accessible and viewable by all other BGA developers and that you can open pull requests for other projects that are not your own?

[Kayvon]

Because it's the default setting, most BGA games, released and otherwise, have the source code available. BGA administrators can help anyone gain access to abandoned projects. In fact, there's an entire section on "bounty hunting" where you can solve outstanding bugs on any game in exchange for gift points. I think accumulated gift points are used for BGA premium memberships.

If you're signed up as a developer, the bounty hunting section it https://studio.boardgamearena.com/bounties