Board Game Arena

I would like to try Keyflower and Forrest Shuffle but I still don't totally understand either after the tutorials. Is there a way to play against ai for a few games?

Thanks.

Have you considered to play with yourself in "hotseat mode"?

Mykola wrote: ↑21 August 2025, 16:38 Have you considered to play with yourself in "hotseat mode"?

This is a Premium feature and they have a standard account.

Look for a friendly, learning game. Go to those game forums and ask... maybe someone there would like more new players.

Also, have you read the rulebook? Or even watched a video? The tutorials are often more about learning the BGA interface for the game than for fully understanding how to play.

Hello porknz.. welcome to bga. I sent fr . I can try to help you. I can play friendlies if needed. As above me said. Tutorials are great for learning the interface. But it really really helps to read the actual rulebook. And after the first game. You may have to be like me, and read the rulebook again, especially for scoring. Usually at that point you can play about any game on the site.

Porknz wrote: ↑20 August 2025, 23:19 I would like to try Keyflower and Forrest Shuffle but I still don't totally understand either after the tutorials. Is there a way to play against ai for a few games?

Thanks.

No, some games have automas if they're described in the game rules, but BGA forbids to implement AIs in games.

You could set up a dummy account and play against yourself as an alternative to "Hotseat" mode. If you sign onto one of the accounts through a different browser (for example, one in Chrome, one in Edge) you can avoid the problems of logging in and out of accounts. This might not help directly with strategy, but you could see how the scoring is carried out (which is critical for games like Forrest Shuffle).

(Needless to say, you should not do this one thousand times and artificially boost your game rating (Elo). You probably want to play in (turn-based) friendly mode anyway, so you can easily stop the game at any point.)

alexsim wrote: ↑22 August 2025, 22:53 (Needless to say, you should not do this one thousand times and artificially boost your game rating (Elo).

You should not do this even one time. Playing in competitive mode with two different accounts you control is strictly forbidden, even if they're not playing against each other.

A BGA admin has expressly said creating a second account for friendly mode only play to create tutorials is ok. I assume this also includes creating one for testing during game development. I've not seen any official statement about other authorized purposes for creating a second account. Arguably BGA would not be ok with creating another account to hotseat with because this is a perk of Premium.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑23 August 2025, 01:40 Arguably BGA would not be ok with creating another account to hotseat with because this is a perk of Premium.

I get what you're saying, but this is essentially what my husband and I do, though we don't hotseat. He works out of Edge, I work out of Chrome, and we play our turns on the same PC whenever we're free. Occasionally, I use his account to test something (usually when someone on the forums is complaining something doesn't work or something weird happened in their game) and then abandon the game.

nik592 wrote: ↑23 August 2025, 10:24

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑23 August 2025, 01:40 Arguably BGA would not be ok with creating another account to hotseat with because this is a perk of Premium.

I get what you're saying, but this is essentially what my husband and I do, though we don't hotseat. He works out of Edge, I work out of Chrome, and we play our turns on the same PC whenever we're free. Occasionally, I use his account to test something (usually when someone on the forums is complaining something doesn't work or something weird happened in their game) and then abandon the game.

To clarify, I meant solo hotseating. But he is actually a second person.