Tabletop gaming has experienced quite a resurgence in the last few years, and there’s definitely a unique type of fun to be had when sitting down at a table with friends and manipulating cards, dice, and small plastic pieces. However, for my money, there are some games I just prefer to play in digital form. These in particular.
Magic: The Gathering
I’ve recently got back into Magic: The Gathering using physical cards, though part of the reason why I fell back into it is thanks to the digital version of the game, and the fact that if you buy a starter deck in real life, you can get a digital copy of that for the game.
Playing Magic with cards is fine, and obviously not something you can abandon entirely if you want to enjoy the collecting and social aspects of the game. However, playing the digital version just removes so much friction from the game. I don’t have to micromanage every little effect, or detail of the game, because the computer enforces the rules.
It means I can learn the correct way some cards are played that are ambiguous, and most importantly play lots of rounds against opponents with my virtual deck so that I know what I’m doing when I next go to a real-world game. The actual game part of Magic is just better to play in digital form, but, of course, that’s not the totality of what makes Magic fun.
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Chess
I’m a lifelong lover of chess (I was even team captain a few times in school), but it’s almost never a convenient time to whip out my board. Most of the people I can play chess against are remote anyway, so playing on a computer, tablet, or phone is honestly the best way to get your chess fix, in my opinion.
Most importantly, you can play against the AI, which means I don’t have to lose every game to a 9-year-old chess prodigy with too much time on their hands. I’d be surprised if most of the Chess that happens today isn’t digital!
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Warhammer 40K
I have mad respect for people who play tabletop Warhammer 40K. Painting their models, building amazing dioramas to play on, and getting together in dedicated room to play out grim and dark battles using protractors and dice seems like a fun way to spend a weekend. However, that’s a pretty high bar for someone who’s interested in the world of 40K, but really doesn’t have the time and money to invest into that particular hobby.
The good news is that there are numerous games set in the 40K universe, and some of them, like the turn-based Battle Sector try to digitize the tabletop version of the game.
However, there are also amazing RPGs like Rogue Trader, and epic adventure action games like Space Marine 2. Some games like Space Hulk are adaptations of other tabletop 40K properties, and don’t forget the Dawn of War series, which brings the tactics of 40K to a real-time strategy format.
I’ll watch 40K tabletop gamers have fun via YouTube, but I think it’s the digital road for me!
Battletech
Battletech (which spawned the Mechwarrior games) is a less well-known tabletop game than Warhammer, but it still has a following and I became a fan of the world from watching the cartoon as a child, and playing the early Mechwarrior games on my dad’s PC. I didn’t even know it was a tabletop game until many years later.
I could never get into the tabletop version for pretty much the same reason I couldn’t get into tabletop Warhammer, but a few years ago we got Battletech the video game, which is an awesome, turn-based adaptation of the tabletop game. It’s received quite a few expansions as well, and, best of all, it has a native Mac version which I keep permanently installed on my M4 MacBook Pro.
Scrabble
Everyone’s favorite word game was made for the computer and internet age. You can play it as a mobile app, or even play it online for free. I know Wordle has become the popular word-game ritual for people these days, and do people still play Words With Friends? Either way, Scrabble is easy to access and much more convenient to play on an electronic device, and you don’t have to waste any time arguing about whether a word is real or not.
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Monopoly
I’m going to be honest with you—I despise Monopoly. I have never enjoyed playing this board game, and yet at so many family gatherings someone has to drag out that box. Monopoly seems like it should be fun, but for me, it just goes on for too long, and it’s not a particularly balanced experience.
So, instead of fiddling with the board, I can just hook up my Nintendo Switch to the nearest TV, upend my bag of Joy Cons, and we can all play the digital version which, like digital MTG, removes a lot of the time-wasting friction. No arguments about rules or mistakes, and it’s all over much sooner than the tabletop version, to my great relief.
Failing that, there’s even the tablet version, (also for Android) so there’s never a reason to fish out that moldy old cardboard.
Now, put away the pitchforks, because I’ll never say that the board games themselves are never worth playing, but if I can get to the core of what makes those games great in a much more convenient form, I’m going to pick that most of the time.
