Next week will the first anniversary of France's first lockdown due to covid. For months, we were stuck at home, unable to go out except to buy groceries. This meant I got separated from my friends, and my wife, aka my board game pals. And that's when I discovered Board Game Arena. A little disclaimer before I start: this is not sponsored by BGA in any way, views and opinions are my own. That being said, what is BGA?
It's a (mostly) free platform on which you can play hundreds of board games, in dozens of different languages, with millions of people around the world. What more is there to say?
From easy games, like Battleship, Connect Four or Yatzhee, to longer games for more hard core players, like 7 Wonders or Terra Mystica, you're bound to find something you like.
It also has a great community of developers who contribute (for free) every day, adding new games or improving existing ones, so if you're a developer and a board game junkie, this might be a good place for you to check out!
You can add friends to play with them or you can create or join a public table to play with anyone available on the platform. You have access to a general chat to address everyone online, and a chat is created with each new table so you can talk with the other players.
You can also add games to your favorites, and search through their catalogue with precise filters. You can also choose to play in real time (if your opponents are online) or turn by turn, meaning you can play whenever you log back into your account.
Every game has its own page showing some key information (number of players, average game duration, complexity) and giving you access to the rules, either via the official rule book in PDF or by linking YouTube videos explaining how to play it.
During a game, the website will guide you on what moves you can and can't do, and will show you how points are counted (while doing it on its own), so it's a nice way to learn how to play some games. I find it particularly useful to try new games for free before buying the actual physical ones, especially since every is done with the utmost realism and the graphics are great, thus making you feel like you're actually playing around a table.
As I said in the beginning, creating an account is free, but you can also choose to open a premium account, which costs 2€ per month and gives you access to more games (the ones marked with the yellow tag you can in the pictures). An important thing to note is that a premium player can invite non-premium players to play a premium game, so you and your friends don't all need to get a paid account, one is enough.
Players can also earn what BGA calls "Gift Points" by playing games for the first time, contributing to help translate the website, or referring your friends. Once you get to a certain threshold of points, you get one premium month for free. Here is my link if you want to create an account: https://boardgamearena.com/?sp=1fsc9f. I encourage you to do so and then share your own link with your friends and family to try the premium bonuses before actually deciding whether to pay for it or not.
The pandemic brought them millions of new players (more than 3 millions people subscribed between March and December 2020!), and the French game editor Asmodee (Catan, Dobble, Ticket to Ride...) bought the website in February 2021, so we can expect even more budget and good stuff coming this year!
There's a lot more to it than that, but I just wanted to give you this tip and share this website that helped me connect and hang out with my friends and family even while being separated because of COVID. Enjoy the games, and let me know in the comments if you want to play together some time!
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