Board Game Arena

Hello all,

Over the past few months I've been working on a side project to experiment with AI and to get better at Wingspan. After many iterations I think the approach is good enough to open it up, so I'm posting here to invite the first few beta testers.

The prototype, boardgame.coach, currently works only in Chrome:

• you sign up at https://boardgame.coach

• you install the extension

• from then on, the end-of-game / summary page of every Wingspan game shows an "Analyze this game" button

• click it and the game is sent to Claude, which writes a coaching report

It only reads the public replay of a finished game, in your own browser and nothing happens during live play and no hidden information is involved (no cheating).

The report covers so far: your starting hand decision, best and worst moves, engine building, the impact of luck, and a 1–10 score for how well you played. Please let me know what else can be added.

Here's what a report looks like, if you'd rather see one before installing anything:
https://boardgame.coach/shared/bfa00032 ... fa8bfa04c9

How to help

Sign up at https://boardgame.coach and run it on a few of your games. What I've found most useful is reviewing a real-time game right after finishing it, while I still remember why I made each move, that's when the report teaches me the most.

Every section of the report has a feedback feature: you can rate how good the coaching is and leave a comment. That's the thing I need most. The tool still gets things wrong sometimes, and the mistakes I can't spot myself are exactly the ones I'm looking for — so "this advice is nonsense, and here's why" is a very welcome reply.

I'm still thinking about how to reward the testers who help improve the prototype — open to suggestions

Have fun, and let me know anything I can improve.

Tedoron

(Community project, not affiliated with BGA - I have written multiple mails to BGA about it - happy to talk . Mods: if this belongs elsewhere, happy to move it.)

Have you gotten permission from BGA for this?

I would think this falls under the category of "using software to aid in games", which could be construed as being against the BGA terms of service.

I would not agree that using this would be a violation, because it would be used to study a game after the game is over, not to make moves during the actual game, but it could be a gray area.

I have written to BGA already 3 times - but still waiting patiently .

As you said "using software to aid IN games" - this is strictly a post game tool, in a game it is not helping.
At the end anyone can get the logs of a game a paste into an AI chat to learn, I don't think it should be against the rules - using AI during a game is another thing and very unfair.

I agree completely, but someone else recently did something similar to what you're doing, and BGA had not given permission, and they ended up opposing the project, so it was scrapped.

Ok interesting - if you can find again that project can you please share it with me? Thanks

It was the "tfmBot" for Terraforming Mars.

FrankJones wrote: ↑16 September 2026, 19:39 I would think this falls under the category of "using software to aid in games", which could be construed as being against the BGA terms of service.

I think "aid in games" means just that: help in, i.e., during the game. From the description above, that not what's happening. No data gets processed until after the game is completely over, so it's not aiding during the game. And such a restriction would be silly because it's perfectly fine to post game links and ask other players to analyze what you did. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to use software to do the same thing, as long as it isn't being used to help you make a decision while the game is still going.

FrankJones wrote: ↑16 September 2026, 21:26 I agree completely, but someone else recently did something similar to what you're doing, and BGA had not given permission, and they ended up opposing the project, so it was scrapped.

Responding to posts serially, so I didn't see this. Tfmbot was an automated player that had its own BGA account. This is nothing of the sort.

Now if it taxes server resources with database queries, that could be objectionable.

Agreed, I cannot see any reasonable objection to this tool.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑17 September 2026, 03:47

FrankJones wrote: ↑16 September 2026, 21:26 I agree completely, but someone else recently did something similar to what you're doing, and BGA had not given permission, and they ended up opposing the project, so it was scrapped.

Responding to posts serially, so I didn't see this. Tfmbot was an automated player that had its own BGA account. This is nothing of the sort.

Now if it taxes server resources with database queries, that could be objectionable.

Fair - When you click "Analyze", the extension loads 2 pages in your own browser: the game review page and the replay page for that finished game.

So basically what you'd get by clicking "Replay" yourself. So the load on BGA is a couple of page views per game, initiated by the user so I would not define it as a big automated load on the servers.