Have you ever thought about playing your favorite game online with friends and family from all over? I know we have and especially when it comes to our very own game...
Like most people new to gaming we assumed a project of this nature this would entail a ton of programing, lots of hours and a far bigger budget than our small startup could afford. Then we learned about a piece of software called - Tabletop Simulator. This software is very popular in the world of developers and gamers alike. In the most basic terms, TTS makes it incredibly easy to transform any tabletop / board game into a digital version that can then be share and played with other Tabletop Simulator owners.
A dream come true... right? In short yes, however it does have some limitations and definite draw backs in the long run.
Our first step was to download and install a copy of Tabletop Simulator on our computer so we could test out its interface and difficulty levels. It passed with flying colors. The few games we tested all played well and had some really cool features built into them. The software was versatility and seemed to have a strong community to help support most projects and developers goals. While it seemed easy to create a basic game, we decided to reach out to a couple freelance developers to get pricing to have a professional create our project. BEST MONEY SPENT!!
We do not get anything from this...
We wanted to share the information on the TTS Developer we went with on our project! Chris is currently creating his own gaming company called Phireside Gaming. While he does not have his own website running yet, he can be found on Fiverr for contract work.
Of all the money we have spent on developing our game both physically and virtually, Chris was by far the best "bang for the buck"!! He was reasonably priced, he created exactly what we wanted, he was fast with great communication and simply put our game turned out AMAZING!
TTS modules (games) can be created by anyone and shared with the community or kept private by its creator. Our decision to have the game developed was primarily for the ability to share it directly with our play testers for feedback, our publishers for marketing and our family that does not live close. With that said, it came out so great we debated heavily about opening it up to the general TTS community, but in the ended stuck to our original plan to keep it private (invitation only).
In addition to just uploading our games assets and creating the environment for play, we also chose to have Chris do all the automations and scripting for both the games setup and the games scoring at the end. We chose to still have each player track their likes and distribute money to provide more interaction during each round, but this could easily have been scripted also.
So what does the final TTS version of The Blog Master: Exploring Europe look like?
What do you think... Comment below if you have used TTS or would like to share your thoughts on our setup :)
So with everything turning out so great, what are the negatives:
Each player must own a copy of Tabletop Simulator in order to play any module available. We can not invite anyone to join us for a game unless they already own a copy of TTS, the positive is that most people who do any playtesting or reviews already own a copy :) If they do not it is rather economical at around $20.00.
There is not a reasonable way to monetize a game on TTS as a small Indie Developer. If you are looking to create a version of your game to sell or create a community of players with any revenue streams TTS is most likely not the route to take.
The scripting can be a little finicky at times and cause the system to freeze. We have only had it happen once during our test play sessions, but have heard many other complain about it freezing in the middle of a long session.
For me personally, I just feel like games loose something when not played Face to Face. This applies to all games that I have played in a virtual environment not just ours. The feel of picking up cards and hearing them snap down when played or tossing your metal coins back into the bank just can't be replaced on a computer.
In the end, I would highly recommend creating a TTS version of your game! This method of game creation allows for much faster and much more thorough playtesting by people all around the world. In the end it will help you refine your game to level that would be almost impossible by mailing out prototypes to various game testers.
Aside from the cost savings and development perks in using Tabletop Simulator, it is amazing to think that I can play a game of The Blog Master: Exploring Europe with my daughter who now lives in Alaska anytime I want!!
PS: If anyone is interested in playing a game with us, just reach out and we can setup a time to play :)
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