Boardgame World

OK...I've been meaning to post this for the past week or so but kept forgetting to do so. Well, did you honestly expect any different from me? :) Anyway, the CO Monsons all already know about this, but I wanted to let everyone else know about the AWESOME website I recently found and that Allie and I use ALL THE TIME!

The website is: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/ It's a German website that translates to "Boardgame World" (or so Wikipedia tells me. :) You can read about it on Wikipedia by clicking here.) The great thing about this website is that it's TOTALLY FREE! You go to the site, it asks for a username and password, but you don't actually have to register...as long as no one is currently using the username you've selected, you enter the site and can start playing games!

Right after you log in, a window pops up with some buttons you can click on if you want to have an online chat with someone about the site, or you can also click on a button to take you to a separate website with useful information to help you understand how to use the site. The only downside is that it's a German site, so there's a lot of stuff in German. However, there's also some English, it's easy enough to navigate to what you want to do, and there's always a chat box at the bottom of your screen you can use to ask questions if you need to, and most people who use the site can speak English.

When you first log in, you get brought to the main page (I think it's technically called the "Game Manager") and it shows you the games for which people are currently looking for other players so they can start playing. If the game is in a Green box, it means it's open and available for you to play. If not, you can still click on the game to watch, but you can't play.

There's also a way to start your own game (if what you want to play isn't currently in the Game Manager), and it's really pretty easy, but it would be pretty difficult to type it all out right here. If you want to do this and can't figure it out on your own, feel free to give me a call and I'll walk you through it.

One other thing I'll say about the website is that you can choose to either play entirely online, or you can download the website's "client" that lets you play (at least partially) from your computer. You're still playing online, but some of the pages (i.e. the different' game's graphics, etc.) are cached in a temp folder on your hard drive, so once you click on a game to play, it loads up and plays MUCH faster than it does online. If you want to download the client (we did), it's really easy and the file is only a few megabytes, so it's no big deal.

On a side note, the first time you want to play a game (if you’re using the client), I would suggest that you click on a game to "watch" the game being played...this way, you let the graphics, etc. load to your computer and when you subsequently want to play the game, you can start up right away. If you're loading a new game for the first time it usually takes a couple of minutes, and if you've joined a game to play, sometimes the other players get impatient waiting for you to take your turn (all the while the game hasn't even loaded on your computer yet!). I kind of learned that the hard way... :)

Well, I HIGHLY recommend you guys give this site a try--it's AWESOME!! It's great, because you can play the games really quickly (you don't have to take all the time to set up, count cards, shuffle, clean up, etc.), you get to play games with people from all over the world, and it's just really fun and easy!

As you'll see (if you ever use the site), there are literally dozens and dozens of games available, but some of the ones that Allie and I play the most are: Dominion (there are ALWAYS games of Dominion going!), Ingenious (in German it's called "Einfach Genial" in case you're looking for it), Thurn & Taxis, and San Juan, but there are LOTS MORE!

Give it a try and let me know what you think and/or if you have any questions. ENJOY! :)