Board Game Arena

English below

Depuis quelques jours, certains jeux sont « améliorés »… je trouve personnellement que cela dénature le jeu par rapport à une vrai partie IRL.

Prenons l’exemple de Flowers. Un petit jeu de pose de cartes ou il faut bien compter ses groupes pour ne pas faire d’erreur et perdre des points.
La dernière amélioration identifie clairement les groupes complets. Alors le jeu est plus lisible, impossible de faire une erreur.
Je trouve que l’on perd tout l’intérêt du jeu.
Dans une partie IRL, il faut être vigilant… ici ce n’est plus nécessaire, BGA le fait pour nous.

C’est exactement la même chose pour Mandala. Un petit jeu poiur deux joueurs. C’est un jeu que je possède IRL, donc je le connaît bien.
Maintenant BGA indique non seulement le score en direct, mais aussi les couleurs de cartes à jouer… mais quel est l’intérêt ? Il n’y a plus aucun suspense , plus aucune réflexion.

Je suis vraiment déçu.

Voilà c était mon coup de gueule à moi . J’avais besoin de m’exprimer.
Merci de m’avoir lu
Bons jeux à tous


For the past few days, some games have been getting “improved”… Personally, I feel that these changes take away from the original experience compared to playing a real-life game.

Take Flowers, for example. It’s a simple card-placement game where you have to keep track of your groups carefully to avoid making mistakes and losing points.

The latest improvement clearly highlights completed groups. This makes the game easier to read, and it’s now impossible to make a mistake.

I feel like this takes away the whole point of the game. When playing in real life, you have to stay alert and pay attention… but here, that’s no longer necessary because BGA does it all for us.

It’s exactly the same with Mandala, a little two-player game that I actually own in real life, so I know it very well.

Now, BGA not only displays the score in real time, but also tells you which card colors to play… but what’s the point of that? There’s no suspense left, no real thinking involved anymore.

I’m genuinely disappointed.

Anyway, that’s my little rant. I just needed to get it off my chest.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and happy gaming, everyone!

Bonjour
Merci pour cette remarque. Je suis venue sur le forum pour savoir si Quelqu un se plaignait des aides sur le jeu flowers... Tout à fait d'accord avec la critique. Le jeu n'a plus d'intérêt.

It’s exactly the same with Mandala, a little two-player game that I actually own in real life, so I know it very well.

Shout out to a fellow physical Mandala game owner - we take it on holidays and it's a family favourite. To your point, there is considerably more mental figuring and attention needed in the physical game. Gaining the skill of intuition about what colours are where, what is scarce, and how points are adding up as the game progresses is an important and fun part of the play.

Agreed. The check marks noting completed groups belong in a tutorial, not the game. Especially not the arena games. Sure you can turn your own off and then it is like bowling a tournament game against someone who has the kiddie bumpers on and can't roll a gutter ball. The low card warning and multiple confirmations also detract from the game. Sometimes you should lose when you aren't paying attention. The changes are far too "helpful" in my opinion. I hope they return it to it's original state. After all, no one is watching over your shoulder with those helpful hints when you play actual board games.

It seems like poor game design to me if the highlights being different for the two players is something that can break the game.

Like, in Harmonies there's also an option to turn on and off the highlights that show where you can place the animals, which is a good thing that you can choose to deactivate it, but no one is going to complain that playing against someone who has them turned on is a disadvantage. That's because unless you are playing against beginners, it doesn't make any difference, the "help" it gives is extremely basic and is not what is going to determine who is gonna win the game. The option to have it on or off is more of a visual preference thing.

At first I thought this thread was going to be about a feature they were forcing on the players, which would have been a big issue. But if you are given the choice, I don't see the problem.

It's a bit like if someone complained that on Chess websites, it's impossible for players to make an illegal move. They may even choose to have highlights that show them where they can move the pieces. Everyone understands that unless we are talking about beginners, this help doesn't have an impact on who is gonna win.

424hills wrote: ↑21 October 2026, 03:46 Sure you can turn your own off and then it is like bowling a tournament game against someone who has the kiddie bumpers on and can't roll a gutter ball.

This is actually a good comparison, because having the bumpers on is no guarantee that the player is actually going to hit the pins. If they need that help to even have a chance of doing well, they certainly aren't going to be a threat to someone who can play bowling. In a high level competition, no one would be complaining if their opponent used the bumpers, because it would be pretty useless.