10 minutes ago, kris40k said:Expanding on this, apps allow you to do a lot more than you can do without one, when dealing with hidden information and back-end record keeping. One of my favorite digital boardgames is Armello . Fans of the game are always screaming that there should be a physical copy of the game made, but the developers have repeatedly shot that idea down due to it not working. As I've played the game over the years, I've picked up on the little things that happen behind the scenes and though, "how would you do that at the table" and the amount of bookkeeping that game would have is ridiculous. From things such as tracking certain combinations of what hero is holding what magic items, or has what follower when they step on a stone circle or forest tile, and if its day or night, and if that triggers a special event or not without telling the players (psst...the druids are actually hiding here this game), determining where the King drops random perils every night, without giving away what the peril is and if its appropriate combination for that peril to be on that tile, where Banes randomly spawn every night, resolving combat between King's Guard and Banes, etc., etc. There is a mountain of fiddly bits that happen without the players having to handle it. It really would break down if you took the computer out of the game.
Mansions of Madness is also a decent example of what you can do when you have the app handling hidden information. From the interview, it sounds like Kara took what expertise she developed with MoM one-off stories, took the self-contained limitations off and ran with it for Legends' campaign. I look forward to seeing the results.
As i see so far at this moment, The app comes when the game designers cant express with ideas some board gsme mechanics. In my opinion, the games that uses apps feels "prosthetics", the implementation is very very poor.
Also, the real magic, IMO, in board games is the analogic sense, the "human" component is vital.
Apps? not for me, and romantically speaking, not for anyone: the apps can kill the tabletop.
Cheers everyone