<story><title>Vassal – Online Adaptations of Board Games</title><url>http://www.vassalengine.org/index.php</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>beefsack</author><text>On the topic of online board games, I&amp;#x27;ve been really interested in the idea of a pure play-by-email (PBE) system where there isn&amp;#x27;t a frontend or web interface at all. By that, I mean that a full game rendering is emailed to each player, and they take their turns by replying to the email with the commands they wish to execute.&lt;p&gt;I started one in Go a number of years ago[1] and I feel I managed to prove to myself that a pure email interface is possible and actually really convenient in some cases. I even managed to implement over 20 games[2]. It was only ever used in my closed circle of friends, but we played thousands of games and many found it simple to participate in slow periods at work or school.&lt;p&gt;If anything, my biggest takeaway was that if you want to really reach a level of expertise in a new technology, you need to find a project that you can pour your heart into. I&amp;#x27;ve probably breached 100k LOC for the project and I&amp;#x27;ve been working on it for over half a decade. I&amp;#x27;m currently redoing the project in Rust as an attempt to become highly skilled in that[3].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;Miniand&amp;#x2F;brdg.me&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;Miniand&amp;#x2F;brdg.me&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;Miniand&amp;#x2F;brdg.me&amp;#x2F;tree&amp;#x2F;master&amp;#x2F;game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;Miniand&amp;#x2F;brdg.me&amp;#x2F;tree&amp;#x2F;master&amp;#x2F;game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;brdgme&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;brdgme&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Vassal – Online Adaptations of Board Games</title><url>http://www.vassalengine.org/index.php</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ignu</author><text>The problem with VASSAL and Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia is that... it&amp;#x27;s awkward to play a real time board game online.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a lot of down time while everyone else takes their turn. You have to set aside one to three hours to play uninterrupted. In real life, you have the benefit of hanging out with these people as you play.&lt;p&gt;However, I&amp;#x27;ve become a huge fan of &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.yucata.de&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.yucata.de&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boardgamearena.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boardgamearena.com&lt;/a&gt; recently and not playing games in real time. Making one or two turns a day means there&amp;#x27;s no down time, and I can be much more flexible making my move(s) fit into my schedule.</text></comment>