Welcome to the Astraware Boardgames forum!

[Kieren]

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the forum for Astraware Boardgames!

Astraware Boardgames is something of a first for us - the first time everyone in the office has been involved in a single project, to produce a set which includes our favourite board game classics in a format which anyone can enjoy :)

Each of the developers worked on a couple of the games you see - Larry, our head of development was in charge of Tic Tac Toe and Reversi (the last of which is his personal favourite), Kat (of Astraware Solitaire fame) did Backgammon and Snakes & Ladders, Steve (who worked on Tradewinds 2) was our king of Checkers and Chess and finally Iain, the quiet scotsman in the corner, created our version of Ludo, and had the daunting task of handling Nine Men's Morris (my own favourite game of the set). Both of our artists, Mike and Bryan, worked night and day to produce the beautiful graphics you now see for all 8 of the games!

I myself worked with Howard on the overall design of the game, along with our QA team of Paul K, Roland and Paul S, who tested the games without mercy to make sure they were good, and finally I have to mention our beta tester team, who added their own feedback to improve it further!

As we did with Sudoku and Solitaire, we've aimed to produce the most fun version of each of the games that we can - so that anyone, even those who've never played them before can learn how to play them and have fun doing so - We've designed the easiest AI levels to bring you into the game slowly, the hardest levels for those more familiar with the games...although if you are after a true Chess or Backgammon Master game, this may not be the one for you!

As always, if you have any thoughts on how we can make the games better, any problems, or just want to tell us how you lost 5 years of your life to Boardgames, then please let us know! :)

Have fun!
Kieren

[PaulS]

Hi everybody,

In addition to Kieren's greeting I wanted to give you one top tip to ensure you get maximum enjoyment from Astraware Boardgames:

Each game has it's own individual settings form which can be accessed from the main menu when that game is selected, or from in the game itself, which will allow you to customise that game to your liking. While the default settings for each game should be fairly close to a "Standard" ruleset as with Astraware Solitaire, we know that often games can have different rules for different people. Hopefully we've provided everyone with the options to create the game that they want to play :D

Enjoy,
Paul

[Astragali]

and finally I have to mention our beta tester team, who added their own feedback to improve it further!

He has to mention the testers, or they hide his favourite cookies ;)

or just want to tell us how you lost 5 years of your life to Boardgames, then please let us know! :)

This would be an interesting trick ;)

Anyway, enough of that nonsense - I hope that you all get a lot of fun out of playing this Boardgames pack!

Mark, munching on a cookie :)

[Zxanphorian]

Will there be a "Boardgames II" pack with 8 more games? Also would the potential games be restricted because of copyright issues?

[richard00]

Will there be a "Boardgames II" pack with 8 more games? Also would the potential games be restricted because of copyright issues?


indead, the gamesw are restricted by copyright, although only as far as getting permission to user them is concerned, its easier not to bother and just use games, or versions without copyright, like snakes and ladders as opposed to Chutes & Ladders,which is owned by Hasbro in the US.

as to boardgames ll, ide personally like to see it, although I have suggested a feature in both boardgames and solitaire that makes this unnenecessary, but I think any additional games would be included in a later update to this version as opposed to a new game pack itself. however, I dont believe that t would be anytime soon, although Howard would be the best person to say if there are any planes to in the future.

If, however, there are games that you would like to see included, please post them, and im sure theyll be added to a list of suggestions if its concidered a good idea(although I cant make any promises).

Richard.

[Howard]

Yes, we're hoping to come up with a pack 2 at some point in the future. Like with the first pack, these will be "generic" games that have been presented by so many companies that there isn't a copyright problem. We haven't decided on the board games to include yet... we're in the middle of another pack of games right now, but more news on that later :D

[richard00]

so Boardgames II is in the "an game suggestions please?" phase?

[PaulS]

It never hurts to make a suggestion ;)