Game Name: Patchwork
Number of players: 2
Asynchronous: 2
Notifications: yes
App badge: yes
Buddy list: yes
Replay/ log: replay/ no log
Game end: yes
Unfinished game: win
Stability of servers: good
Ease of switching: good
Player ranking: yes
Player rating: no
Game filtering: N/A
Size of online community: huge
Online and local play: N/A
Online and AI play: N/A
Chat: yes
Comments/ additional features: The app attempts to match you with another player of similar ranking.
Game Name: Cthulhu Realms
Number of players: 2
Asynchronous: yes
Notifications: yes
App badge: yes
Buddy list: no
Replay/ log: replay/ log
Game end: yes
Unfinished game: win
Stability of servers: good
Ease of switching: good
Player ranking: sort of – number of wins
Player rating: no
Game filtering: N/A
Size of online community: good
Online and local play: N/A
Online and AI play: N/A
Chat: no
Comments/ additional features: The replay is a bit fast, but there is a log. Overall a great multiplayer experience.
Game Name: Potion Explosion
Number of players: 2-4
Asynchronous: yes
Notifications: yes
App badge: yes
Buddy list: yes
Replay/ log: no
Game end: yes
Unfinished game: ? I think it just fails
Stability of servers: good
Ease of switching: good
Player ranking: no
Player rating: no
Game filtering: N/A
Size of online community: small
Online and local play: no
Online and AI play: yes
Chat: no
Comments/ additional features: Most of the time you cannot see the other player’s moves, only under certain conditions can you see them. The buddy list is the same one from other Asmodee/ DOW games, so that is great. When creating an open online game, other players must join before closing the app, otherwise the game disappears.
The app has been updated to improve the online play. A few more improvements and this will be great.
Ascension does have App badges.
Only issue is that it doesn’t sync between devices.
If you have game on phone & tablet, badge on your phone but you do your turns on your tablet, the badge won’t go away without re-entering the game.
great compendium.
one suggestion for another category:
private games with friends
not at all? 
(
)
only by GC friendslist (bad bad choice. outdated friendslists. no way to add new friends)
only by ingame buddy list 
(depends totally on how easy/hard it is to add new friends. Playdek= super! other games= meeh)
iMessage invites 
(shaky. not everyone’s taste. THE new standard apple is aiming at? did anybody at apple think about ANYTHING AT ALL when breaking GC?? apple’s way of “this is for the players!”)
password protected 
(simple and elegant universal crossplatform solution. totally independent from whatever apple/android systems)
Private games should be on the list.
I’ll have to add it. I think the ingame buddy list is the best because you can invite the players but it really does depend upon how easy it is to add new friends. This is one of main reasons I’ve not upgraded to iOS 10. (Not seeing a compelling reason to upgrade, and I don’t like losing GC).
You make a good point about password protected games though. You just have to post the password somewhere and interested players can join.
and for games with friends that won’t be a problem 
very well suited for SP/website tournaments too.
btw really any difference for GC functionality on iOS 8 or 9?
can you still add new friends to the GC friendslist?
GC friendslist is not gone on 10, but we can’t open GC nor add new friends.
so pretty useless sooner or later.
the Stone Age tournament had to be cancelled because of this mess.
I can try to add new friends to the GC friend list, but I don’t recall if any have accepted. I thought in iOS 10 in the Settings you could add/ accept new GC friends. I’m not sure since I haven’t upgraded.
It is dissappointing that the GC functionality was cut. It seemed like a promising way to enable multiplayer.
Fluxx and Penny Arcade still use GameCenter for online play.
They also support inviting a GameCenter friend from within the app. So if you meet someone to play a game, and click on their profile, you can invite them to join your friend list. I’m not sure how they would accept the invite, but maybe there’s a workaround here.
This is an interesting topic, and one that is obviously near and dear to a lot of hearts here. After all, as a group, we have a lot more interest in the ins and outs of multiplayer than, say, a forum of match-3 fanatics.
I don’t have a ton of interest in copying and pasting stuff, but I’ll add some thoughts on the categories. First, I think notifications and app badge should just be combined; they are essentially the same thing. As long as a game can communicate the fact that it is your turn, does it really matter how the information gets there? Plus, the Notifications Center in iOS really is pretty good and improves with every major update (especially considering how bad it used to be).
Next, I have two more categories that are pretty important to me … honestly, I’m kind of surprised they aren’t mentioned. First is starting a game. You’d think it would always be easy, but that’s not the case. The poster child for this in Neuroshima Hex — a game that should have about 10 active threads here, yet has none. Why? Because no one has half an hour to try to get a game started.
A couple of years ago, over at That Site That Used To Be Good, I posted the results of a casual experiment comparing how easy it was to start a game in two popular strategy-game apps. The results:
Lost Cities: one step to send an invite
N. Hex: THIRTEEN steps to send an invite.
I’m still shocked by that. Putting up such a barrier to online multiplayer games is a huge designer fail — and, of course, the No. 1 reason that N. Hex has just withered away and become irrelevant. It’s a great game and an otherwise solid app … but only the truly hardcore have the patience to attempt a multiplayer game.
A second missing category is player base. Is anyone actually playing the game in question, or does the matchmaking lobby have tumbleweeds blowing through it? Is even trying to get a game going an exercise in heartache?
Sadly, there’s too many examples of this, and I’m sure we’ve all got some personal disappointments. For me, Kahuna will serve as an example. There’s a game that technically has online multiplayer … but I have not heard of anyone actually completing a game in at least a couple of years. The developers might as well have skipped it as a feature.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents, FWIW. Like I said earlier, this is a great idea for a topic. I’m hoping it gets lots more responses.
NH’s notifications failed miserably, as well. I remember logging in just to check if it was my turn, since the app badge never appeared…
and I don’t agree that app badges and notifications are fundamentally the same. I’ve had games where I get notifications, but the badge doesn’t appear.
If for some reason the notification gets erased or something, then I have to manually check.
For instance, Star Realms & Cthulhu Realms, I get the notifications. But for some reason, the badges don’t show up unless I’m already on my iPad.
It’s hit and miss.
1 Like
I’d rather have the badge than notification, honestly. Twilight Struggle performs awfully at this - notifications that never leave my notification center even after I’ve played my moves, and app badges that correlate to… I have no idea.
I still have the app badge for Twilight Struggle even after I have no games being played. 
Though it did disappear last night. Not sure if it’s permanently gone or not.
I have a badge for TS, too. And I’ve never actually played a game … 
And, yes, I didn’t even pile on all the scorn that’s possible for N. Hex. How about no reliable indication that it’s actually your turn? How about the arbitrary five-game limit?
Notifications will hopefully keep improving, in general. Apple seems serious about notifications being better across all of the iOS experience. Of course, then they contradict themselves by not giving a shit about GameCenter.
LOL. I just got a badge for “first emoji.”
I’m actually kind of proud I held out for so long.
4 Likes
Gary, couldn’t you possibly take Stone Age under Playdek wings?
any kind of license deal or taking over from Campfire Creations would be so great.
this amazing game (and wonderfully designed app) has not deserved to wither away.
but then again…the money. i guess not much revenue any more 
I really appreciate the feedback about what would be useful to know as a reader of reviews. Some of these won’t be reliably discoverable for reviewers, though. For games we get before the official release, especially, testing multiplayer is often hard, and the population on servers during that period is irrelevant to what end-user experiences will be like. You can’t know how a game handles unfinished games unless someone fails to finish a game with you, which you can’t control and which might well require waiting days, and different people often have quite different experiences with the reliability of notifications/badges. But most of this is knowable most of the time, and if it would be helpful, there’s no reason we couldn’t include it.
My inclination is to think that what this really means is that any game with online multiplayer needs a dedicated paragraph in the review for this information. So long as that’s clearly introduced in the first sentence, questions of brevity aren’t terrifically problematic (though I have some concerns about offering full information about stuff like player rating systems). Two other things I think merit mention: whether there’s an undo feature, and how well-suited the game is to multiplayer play. Partly that’s a function of AI quality–for many users, a good AI is a reasonable substitute for quality online play (though even a marvelous AI with various personalities and settings falls short of playing against humans for many players). But often it’s a combination of the importance of yomi, the granularity of turns, legibility of the game state, and duration. Games in which very little happens in a turn need to be pretty short or else games take forever.
Twilight Struggle seems to me like a superb test case. A human player adds a ton (even though the AI’s basically not bad) to the experience, so the fact that it’s a little laborious to read the game state, and games can take weeks, is still worth it. But I quite look forward to Dave Sirlin’s Codex, which was designed for asynchronous play by taking much of the structure of Magic and then dramatically reducing the number of opportunities to interrupt your opponent’s turn. Of existing games, I think Summoner Wars strikes perhaps my favorite balance: the AI is good, but humans are still worth playing. Games aren’t super long, but turns are usually fairly chunky, so the ratio of time spent making interesting decisions to time spent futzing about with getting to your game is quite high (without being so high that the game has few interactions).
I’m feeling like there’s enough interesting content in this thread that it might make sense to simply write a front-page post about what makes a good review of multiplayer content. Anyone object to me doing so, and calling out users by username for their contributions?
3 Likes
That would be great. The quality of the online play feature makes or breaks it; it is not enough that online play is available. I realize that reviewing this before the official release is challenging. It seems you really need two reviewers to really evaluate online play. Maybe developers would be willing to help.
This really is important to how a game works in online play. A really poor example of this is the new Potion Explosion. I like the game itself; it is light fun. But playing online is a pain because of the many problems I mention above.[quote=“rinelk, post:20, topic:331”]
I’m feeling like there’s enough interesting content in this thread that it might make sense to simply write a front-page post about what makes a good review of multiplayer content. Anyone object to me doing so, and calling out users by username for their contributions?
[/quote]
Please do.
I started this post for two reasons. I expect there are games out there that have great online experience, but I just haven’t found or played them. (I’m guessing Stone Age is one. 
) And, I’m hoping if these features are talked about in reviews then board game app developers will think about them and they will not just be an afterthought for online play.
I would like to add my 2 cents here:
-
I think that not all games are well suited to be played online. The target audience would be above 25 years old, majorly above 30-35. Hence async gamemode would usually suit their lifestyles best. Live multiplayer should only be reserved for games that can be played and finished in a very short time. As much as I like the commitment of the Talisman team, I can only hardy imagine anyone would sit continuously for hours in front of his PC or tablet to finish a multiplayer game. Most games of Talisman are still played single player.
-
Not all games are good to be played async. Games with lot of player input in between turns are not suited for that kind of gameplay. Gamedesign should consider this.
-
Yes, an easy setup is a plus
-
Replay of your opponent(s) turns is essential in most games and help bring new players to the game, not just the hardcore gamers, who are satisfied with a log.
-
As point 3 and 4 are about convenience and accessibility, a proper endgame screen is an essential part of that as well, so is the option to replay the game again under same conditions and replay the opponent with a different faction (like SW for example).
-
If you have a bigger publisher/developer like Playdek or DoW, a Friends list is very convenient. You can log in from any game and find/invite your buddies. In all other cases, an option for password protected private game is the way to go.
-
Do not allow cheating. I do not like the Slitherine system for that reason. You play your turn, and if you did not like the outcome just replay it before sending your turn.
-
An in-game Chat option is preferable but not essential.
-
Notifications, of course. Why not per email, it is best for cross-platform gaming. But Badges are most convenient, if implemented correctly.
-
I personally like things like stats. How many times did I win/loose, how is my “elo”, a global/friends leaderboards, etc.
In about 7 years of iOS-gaming, I would give the price for best online gaming without hesitation to Playdek. Second are Coding Monkeys. Starbase Orion is also good. Personally I like the implementation of “Café Internationale” very much, although I am not much into the game itself. BDC get the price for a good effort while missing the essential parts, they messed up good games, believing that they did the best and are not open for correction in the same time.
1 Like