Was just thinking about the fun I used to have at university playing games with asynchronous multiplayer or ‘play-by-email’.
For the uninitiated, games like Combat Mission or Laser Squad Nemesis allowed you to set up a multiplayer match, carry out your turn, then save the game and email it to a friend. They’d open the save file on their computer, make their move, email it back, and so on. Full matches could take days - weeks, even - to play out!
Similarly, we’d play month-long games of Diplomacy, or set the clock in DEFCON to realtime mode and keep the game running for days at a time until it was over.
I find there’s something inherently appealing about video games that not only last for days, but that encourage or even require you to step away and ponder for a few hours before making your next move. In a way, it’s kind of like battling a cryptic crossword for an entire weekend, and I wish more games leaned into that kind of experience.
If anyone knows of any good games that relied on systems like that, share the titles! I’d also love to know if there are any modern games that scratch that itch.
Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but Board Game Arena is pretty good for asynchronous multiplayer, though as you might be able to guess from the name it’s digital versions of tabletop games rather than normal video games
The chess.com app has support for this kind of thing.
Also, I strongly recommend the game Subterfuge: subterfuge-game.com
The game takes place in real time, sending your ships to capture nodes or building resources, but these actions take a long time to complete (for example, it might take 10 hours for a ship to travel between two nodes). The game has a scheduling system, so typically you make moves in real-time, instead you check in every few hours and schedule some moves in advance.
Really interesting, because just a while ago I remembered my experience of playing VGA Planets at the local BBS during my school years in early-mid 1990s. (This is a turn based game where people would submit their turn files, the arbitrator software thing would do its thing weekly, and we’d download the results.) The sysop was a classmate and, since the international money transfers were complicated for school kids at the time, organised getting everyone a registered copy in bulk. I do remember I said something in global messages and people thought it was, in modern vernacular, cringe. I don’t remember how the game ended up. I played some underwhelming race. I can’t remember.
The best non-WEGO turnbased tactics game ever, winSPMBT/winSPWW2 (a descendent of Steel Panthers) is still in development and play by email is the main method of multiplayer.
https://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Workshop/MBT/MBT_page.html
https://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Workshop/WW2/WW2_page.html
Also, check out modern board games and their digital implementations, Yucata is great.
For board games in particular I recommend both the digital and physical versions of Scythe for the vibes you are talking about.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169786/scythe
https://store.steampowered.com/app/718560/Scythe_Digital_Edition/
Also the Pandemic Legacy series of board games.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-season-1
Definitely check out the Vassal engine which is an open source board game/wargame engine with a massive library of games and play by email functionality.
https://vassalengine.org/library/projects
If you liked Advanced Wars try out Advance Wars By Web
Lastly, if the rabbit hole of train games seems appealing the 18xx website looks great…
Check out Your Turn, you play a retro game using a supported emulator and use this app to pass the save file back and forth to the other players.
Currently Android only, hopefully a PC version will come out in the future.Want to spend 6 months learning a game and still only scraping the surface of a gigantic logistics simulator? May I introduce you to Gary Grigsby’s War in the Pacific: Admirals Edition
There are a lot of great digital board game adaptations with asynchronous multiplayer. Terraforming Mars, Lords of Waterdeep, and Scythe, to name a few.
Also Gloom/Frost Haven, I think they actually work better in their digital implementation due to the amount of cardboard overhead in the physical game.
That sounds like so much fun. My college’s email game was someone accidentally mass emailed to the whole school roster and everyone replied with a smartass comment until it got shut down lol.
Happened a few times a semester, too.
https://archipelago.gg/ is not the same thing, but you can set up a multi-person, multi-game asynchronous randomizer that usually lasts for days because Link’s sword is in the Marsh Cave, but to get to the Marsh Cave you need the ship and the ship is in Pewter Gym…
