The Idle Thumbs Asynchronous Turn Based Multiplayer Society for the Idlest of Multiplayer Experiences

[sclpls]

Hey all,

 

Lately I've really been enjoying the flow of coming home from work, checking in on Chaos Reborn and Frozen Cortex to see what turns are available. It's been a really nice multiplayer experience for me, and I think other people here would enjoy it, and I wanted to extend the invitation.

 

Any other quality suggestions for asynchronous turn based games are welcome. I think the only criteria really needs to be that a match shouldn't be too many turns (i.e. not Civilization). If people submit one turn a day, the match should be completed in less than a month. Games that are larger in scope rarely get finished, in my experience.

[J.C.]

Although I'm unable to game on PC right now, I'm all for this. Even just having more people to play board games on iOS with would be great.

[Cbirdsong]

I play Carcassonne and Lost Cities asynchronously on iOS. They're both excellent. Carcassonne is best played as a two player game, and when playing asynchronously, doubly so. Five player matches can last forever if people only check in once or twice a day.

I've tried Ticket to Ride, and it's not really a good fit for this style of play. There's not enough going on in each individual turn for it to be terribly fun. Most interactions with an async TTR game: Open app, draw two cards, check back in tomorrow.

[J.C.]

Main ones I've got are Carcassonne and Lords of Waterdeep. I'd love to play them more. Might get me to buy the expansions for Carcassonne. I'm JC L. on GameCenter if you want to play!

 

Definitely agree about Carcassonne shining when two player. Gets too messy with more people, and I'd imagine turn waits would be unbearable played online.

[undermind9]

Skulls of the shogun could be a good candidate, the turns are quick but still offer the asynchronous option

Battle world kronos was supposed to get this ability (if not already included). I barely played out of the kick starter early access, but would be interested

[J.C.]

I've actually just started playing skulls of the shogun after having it on my phone for over a year. From what I understand you can play with anyone regardless of platform which is pretty cool!

[dibs]

I was part of a Waterdeep tournament on the GWJ forum. It was excellent.

[sclpls]

  On 3/28/2015 at 12:36 AM, J.C. said:

I've actually just started playing skulls of the shogun after having it on my phone for over a year. From what I understand you can play with anyone regardless of platform which is pretty cool!

 

Oh wow, I don't think I realized that it worked across platforms. That's sweet.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Hero Academy was one I enjoyed quite a bit for similar cross platform asyncronous fun. The strategy started to annoy me after a while because I'm just not that good at strategy but also the different teams you could play didn't seem terribly even. it didn't feel like a pay to win scenario but it did feel frustratingly like certain match ups were an uphill struggle.

 

I also liked Frozen Synapse and wish I didn't suck at it.

[J.C.]

  On 4/3/2015 at 10:30 PM, sclpls said:

Oh wow, I don't think I realized that it worked across platforms. That's sweet.

 

It really is! Just checked up on it to make sure it was cross-platform and it is!

 

  On 4/3/2015 at 10:50 PM, SuperBiasedMan said:

I also liked Frozen Synapse and wish I didn't suck at it.

 

I've tried this game a couple times, both the iOS version and the "Prime" version on PS3. Still hasn't quite clicked for me.

[SpekX]

I've been playing a lot of Star Realms. It's a deck building card game and it also has cross-platform asynch multiplayer. It supports iOS, Android, PC, and Mac. It's really great being able to take a turn wherever I happen to be at the time.

 

If anybody picks it up, send me a challenge. SpekX

 

Oh the other really great thing is that you only have to buy it once to unlock the full version on all platforms.

[J.C.]

  On 5/12/2015 at 5:37 AM, SpekX said:

I've been playing a lot of Star Realms. It's a deck building card game and it also has cross-platform asynch multiplayer. It supports iOS, Android, PC, and Mac. It's really great being able to take a turn wherever I happen to be at the time.

 

If anybody picks it up, send me a challenge. SpekX

 

Oh the other really great thing is that you only have to buy it once to unlock the full version on all platforms.

 

Right, I keep forgetting to buy this. I'll have to do that! I played the campaign on the free version and the way it stacks the decks against you was pretty annoying.

[SpekX]

  On 5/12/2015 at 3:51 PM, J.C. said:

Right, I keep forgetting to buy this. I'll have to do that! I played the campaign on the free version and the way it stacks the decks against you was pretty annoying.

 

Yeah, the campaign gets really unfair. You have to rely on a lot of luck as the difficulty ramps up. At least it's kind of interesting. It would be pretty boring just fighting the AI in a series of standard games. There is a way to play against the AI in standard games in the full version (it may be in the free version as well but I don't remember). I'm not sure how good the AI is, though. I went straight to multiplayer after the campaign.

[J.C.]

  On 5/13/2015 at 2:27 AM, SpekX said:

Yeah, the campaign gets really unfair. You have to rely on a lot of luck as the difficulty ramps up. At least it's kind of interesting. It would be pretty boring just fighting the AI in a series of standard games. There is a way to play against the AI in standard games in the full version (it may be in the free version as well but I don't remember). I'm not sure how good the AI is, though. I went straight to multiplayer after the campaign.

 

Yeah, based on my impressions from the free version, I'll likely just skip straight to online. I've played enough of the card game to know how to play.

[baekgom84]

Gonna bump an old thread that is relevant to my interests. I've been playing Twilight Struggle with 21-day turn timers, and I'm loving it. It's really nice to be able to sit down and leisurely plan out your next move, as well as plot out your overall strategy. I'm now wondering if there are any hidden asynchronous gems out there. I know of some obvious ones, like Frozen Synapse (which I just never realy gelled with). The Steam 'Asynchronous Multiplayer' tag is a bit of a joke; it misses some obvious titles, and includes others that don't even seem to be turn-based, let alone asynchronous.

 

I'd love to play something like Civ, but that obviously has too many turns - especially if you play with multiple players. The best options are probably board game conversions. I think the ideal game for me would probably be something with around 2-5 players, with turns that take a good deal of planning, but where the total amount of turns averages around 50 or so. I've heard Dominions 4 is pretty popular for PBEM, but that game looks pretty complicated, and the fantasy trappings don't really appeal to me.