Tabletop Simulator

Surprisingly, I fell into a trap which I have previously always avoided.  Early Access.

Buying games in early access always seemed like an odd idea to me.  Why would you buy a half-completed game at full price?  Never seemed to make sense.

However, as you probably guessed from the title, I actually purchased Tabletop Simulator despite it being an early access title.

I've been aware of this title for a long time now - ever since it first got kickstarted.  However, in line with my general policy for games (ie wait until the game gets finished and released), I passed and kept moving.  However, I recently got reintroduced to it when I say a couple of people on Youtube using the game to play board games remotely.

And, despite it looking a little finicky, the software looked really impressive.

In brief, the "game" is really just a physics simulator.  It gives you lots of different pieces, as well as the ability to create mods for other pieces, which you can use in board games.  The amazing thing is the amount of mods which have already been created for various different games.

The nature of the game - it being a physics simulator - is really what overcame the early access label for me.  The game was stable and the physics seemed to work such that you could easily use it to play various different board games.

What is also cool about Tabletop Simulator is that, once you spend a bit of time learning how, its actually fairly easy to create your own mods.

By way of proof - Imperial Battle Line.

Battle Line is a great little card game by Reiner Knizia.  There is already a mod for the original game on Steam Workshop but there wasn't a mod for the Star Wars retheme of the game.  Seeing as I always played with the Star Wars retheme - it was a no-brainer for me to create my own mod.

I'm also pretty chuffed that, after being uploaded on 18 March, I currently have 61 subscribers.  Taking out my brother and myself, that still gives me 59 strangers playing that mod.

Cool!