To chat or not to chat during a BGA game: that is the question!

The most important thing we always keep in mind at BGA is that board games is a way to express human interactions. This is why on BGA you play only against other humans, and also why our baseline is "Play with the world".

Beside playing your moves, we consider that chatting with your opponents is part of playing board games. This is the reason why on BGA we let you tell (almost) anything you want in the chat, instead of limiting you to a set of pre-defined interactions like other gaming platforms do.
However, for a fraction of our community, this "chat" part of the game is also a pain. Some of them are too shy to communicate.
Some do not speak the same language than the other players, or not enough to participate. Some may have other reasons, but whatever the reason we, at BGA, care about this part of the community and would like to work on integrating them more.

Thanks to the support of our parent company Asmodee, we have been put in touch at the beginning of last year with OpenAI, a leading company in the domain of AI chatbot, to work on advanced prototypes in order to find commercial applications to their next product which you have now probably heard about: ChatGPT.
The result of this collaboration has been a 12 months joint development effort to build a new feature for Board Game Arena: ShyChat.

By enabling ShyChat on your BGA profile, you will be able to focus 100% on the game you play, while our AI engine takes care of the conversation with your opponents.

Thanks to the powerful technology behind ShyChat, our bot will answer to everything written by your opponents during your BGA game: give the proper salutation and "good luck" when game starts (each time in a very unique way, depending on the context), makes the appropriate comments when an opponent suggests that you could have played a better move (politely explaining him/her to mind their own business), and even defend yourself if your opponent says innapropriate things in an appropriate way (applying best conflict reduction strategies).

But ShyChat do not only answer: it has the initiative to speak when appropriate. ShyChat has been trained ("Machine learning" technology) to recognize certain games situations, and has learned to react in a certain way based on what real human players have said in similar situations. Thus, on your behalf, ShyChat will comment the game when appropriate, doing some interesting comments on the game. If you target again and again the same opponents, it will find you very good rational reasons to do it ("Sorry, I really do not want to target you, but I am forced to do it because of XXX"). If have to quickly quit your computer for few minutes when it is your turn to play, it will tell your opponents something like "I really sorry, I must really take my time on this move" or will enjoy everyone with some jokes to make sure your opponents will no be made at you.

In addition to all of this, ShyChat is strongly customizable so that it matches perfectly your needs. The default "over-polite" will make sure everything is always fine with everyone at your table, while some other settings like "passive-aggressive" (available for Premium players only) will limit the exchange to what is exactly needed to devolve your opponents while you are 100% focused on the game itself. The "multilingual" option allows ShyChat to pretend that you are fluent in all the available languages, and combined with the "make friends" option, it will allow you to make close friends in the whole world with absolutely no effort.

We just would like to do an important disclaimer about the "flirting" option: this option will try to seduce your opponents in a rather effective way. However, and even if our technical partner ensured us that the AI is doing it "in a way that matches the 2023 highest standards", we should recall you that at the end, you are accountable of everything that has been said by you on BGA, even if the messages has been written by ShyChat.

So obviously one question at this step is: why not move this to the next level and create an AI that takes care of your games moves themselves, and not only of the chat message?
Indeed, we are receiving tons of messages from players on BGA that are pissed of playing board games against humans: "they are so slow", "they are making unmeaningful moves", "you have to learn all these rules, and moving these strange pieces on these overcomplicated boards", "why would I need to do all that while I just want to have fun?".

Well, for now we must admit that the technology is not mature enough, but we are working on a prototype named "DumbBot" that will allow even non gamers to play on BGA, thanks to the AI.

We hope that you will enjoy this new feature a lot, and would like to mention that against all odds... this news has been written by a human.

...But you do not have to wait till September!


Earth, the soil that supports and sustains our beautiful planet. Over thousands of years of evolution and adaptation the flora and fauna of this unique planet have grown and developed into amazing life forms, creating symbiotic ecosystems and habitats.

It is time to jump into these rich environments and create some amazing natural synergies that replicate and extrapolate on Earth’s amazing versatility and plethora of natural resources. Create a self-supporting engine of growth, expansion, and supply where even your unused plants become compost for future growth.

The game begins before the starting hand has even been drafted. Players will receive an Island, Climate, and Ecosystem card during set-up. Using these double-sided cards, each player sows their strategy by selecting one side of the card to place face-up in their play area.

The combination of these three cards introduces asymmetry to the game by providing variable starting resources, bonus abilities, and unique end-game scoring objectives.

How does it play?
On their turn, the active player will choose one of four different actions, reaping their major benefits, while all other players welcome the minor benefit.

Subsequently, all players activate any cards on their player-board and in their tableau, which match the color of the chosen action.

Players continue taking actions, arranging their Island, sowing Plants, and developing Terrains to attract elusive Fauna, and unlock the scoring bonuses of diverse Ecosystems.
Once a player has added a sixteenth card to their 4×4 tableau, they earn a completion bonus and trigger the end of the game.

All players will tally the victory points they earned from completing Ecosystems, reaching Fauna objectives, Composting cards, gaining Plant cubes, Growth pieces, for their Plant and Terrain values, and for Events played. The player with the most victory points wins!

Earth is an open world engine builder for 1 to 5 players with simple rules but tons of strategic possibilities. With its encyclopedic nature and the enormous number of unique cards and combinations, every single game will allow you to discover new synergies and connections, just as our vast and fascinating world allows us to do!

There is a lot going on here and you can discover everything about the game by clicking this link to the game page:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=earth

It's huge, and it's all thanks to the team of Inside Up Games and the game designer Maxime Tardif that you can now play it on your favorite platform.
But the MVP here is the developer, bennygui, that developed the whole game for Board Game Arena.
They all deserves kudos and love for this.

That's a big release for today's Wednesday Release Time, and that's it for this week!
Play fair and take care... and please, share!
See you next week for more amazing titles on BGA.

A deceptively cute, deceivingly challenging abstract strategy game for two players.

Every time you place a kitten on the bed, it goes “boop.” Which is to say that it pushes every other kitten on the board one space away. Line up three kittens in a row to graduate them into cats… and then, get three cats in a row to win.

But that is not easy with both you AND your opponent constantly “booping” kittens around. It is like… herding cats!
Can you “boop” your cats into position to win?
Or will you just get “booped” right off the bed?

Play it by clicking here:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=boop

...or learn the rules using the tutorial included!

We need to thank Smirk & Laughs publishing team as well as the designer Scott Brady, and all the development work done by pasko92 to bring this cute and charming game to the platform!

That's it for today
See you all on Wednesday for an amazing release!
Until then, play fair and... boop!

Bananas, papayas, pineapples... If you like piña coladas, getting caught in the rain:
Collect the right fruits with the help of toucans!

The rainforest is full of juicy and delicious fruits just waiting for you. But be careful: at the end of the game, some fruits may turn out to be spoiled ... Harvest the best fruits wisely to avoid the bad ones, and use your Toucan cards to protect your stash ... or steal fruit from your opponents!

Making a move is simple: choose one of three piles of cards, then place a new card on top of each pile. It is up to you to make the best tactical decisions to secure victory and leave the spoiled fruit to your opponents.

Players take turns clockwise. When it is your turn, pick 1 column and take all of its cards. Place the cards face up in front of you, grouping identical fruit cards together. Toucan cards give the players access to special abilities. If you take a toucan card, use its effect immediately and discard it afterwards. If you take 2 or more toucan cards, use their effects in the order of your choice. The turn ends with adding one card to each column from the draw pile, always in the same order: start with the column nearest to the draw pile and finish with the farthest.

A colourful and clever strategy game with easy-to-understand rules for children and adults!

Is a tutorial available? Absolutely! And you can learn to play Tucano in 2 minutes there.

And you can of course go to the game page by clicking the link right below:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=tucano

The game has been beautifully developed by JohnMotra, and we would love to thank him for the wonderful work done.
Théo Rivière, the game designer, accompanied by the beautiful illustrations of Odile Sageat and the work done by the Helvetiq publishing team allowed us to bring the game to the platform, and that is why they all deserves some love!

Can you play it now?
Yes, Tucan!
And that's it for today's WRT release!
See you next week for more purr purr and engine-building on Board Game Arena!

It's all about the sun. Oh Yeah!
Welcome to the world of Photosynthesis, the green strategy board game!

Plant and shape the ever-changing forest as you cultivate your seeds and your strategy. Take your trees through their life-cycle, from seedling to full bloom to rebirth, and earn points as their leaves collect energy from the revolving sun’s rays. Carefully pick where you sow and when you grow, as trees in the shadows are blocked from light, and from points.

Each turn the sun moves around the board, shifting the directions of its rays so different trees are now bathed in light and generate light points based on the size of the tree- as long as the tree is in the light and not shadowed by other trees. On your turn you can take a couple of different actions including:
-Planting seeds on the board
-Growing trees to the next size
-Buying trees
-Harvesting fully grown trees

When you grow a tree you need to have an available tree of the next size next to your player board. So, in order for a tree to grow you need to first buy a bigger tree.

Once you understand this sequence of events the gameplay is pretty straightforward and turns are quick. You usually only have enough light points to do 1-3 actions per turn.

It is light, green and available for you to play on Board Game Arena right now! And if you are too shy to dive into the rules, you can just learn it by playing the tutorial included!

Of course you can find the game page by clicking right below:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?ga ... osynthesis

The publisher is Blue Orange Games, the designer is Hjalmar Hach, and the developers for BGA are darhf and lordalx. And they all deserve a big THANKS and some LOVE for making the game available to all on your favorite platform! It is thanks to the efforts of many people that we can offer you the best of both real and digital worlds.

So don't loose a minute, the sun is rising, it's time to plant a tree!
That's it for today Wednesday Release Time.
See you next week, and until then, take care and play fair!

Are you eager to visit the tourist spots in Goa, the beautiful yet tiny state in India? What will you choose? Do you wish to visit only the beaches...or the forts? Or would you rather visit one of each type of destination? Will you complete your tour plans? Now you can enjoy the beauty of Goa in this roll-and-write game.

In Go Goa, you have twelve days to tour the state, collecting souvenirs from different tourist destinations. Each day, you select three dice to decide the direction, distance, and deviation in the route you will travel, then trace a route to your new destination.

In more detail: during each round the starting player rolls three dice, then reserves one die for the direction that only they can use. All other players use the dice to determine the direction to travel in, the number of steps, and the deviations they are allowed to take. Players then draw the route that they are taking for the day on their player sheet, which represents the map of Goa. The map contains tourist destinations, and if you end your movement on such a spot, you score points.

You also score bonus points for completing sets of five different destination types or three of one particular destination. In addition, you can score points for completing the tour plans that you chose.

After all players take their turn, a new round starts, with the starting player role moving clockwise.

The game ends after twelve rounds are completed. Players tally their scores for the tourist destinations visited and any bonus points that they may have collected along their trip. The player with the highest score wins.

Play it right now from your browser, try it, and if you like it don't hesitate to support the publisher!
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=gogoa

The game has been developed by GTSchemer and is fully playable from pretty much any device!
We would love to also thank the team behind Kheo Games, and the game designers Andy Desa & Suyog Kamat for their authorization to bring the game on your platform!

That's Monday, and that's it for today.
A roll and write that's worth giving a try,
and we'll see each others... on Wednesday Release Time!
Until then, take care and play fair!

The Four Heroes rose up against the Blight and sealed its immortal remnants with their legendary power. Now, as a Guard of the Seal, it is up to you to keep the Blight's minions from setting it free.

In None Shall Pass!, choose from eight guards with unique and powerful abilities, then stand together with your fellow guards to stop monsters, level up, and prepare for the final fight. But work quickly, or the monsters will breach your defences, and all will be lost.

Each player chooses a Guard. One monster from each level is selected at random, and the first monster is revealed. Every round, all players roll their dice, then each player in turn selects one of their dice and follows the corresponding action on their Guard cards. Next, if the monster’s Health has reached zero, it is defeated and replaced with the next monster. Otherwise, the monster attacks the player whose actions had the highest Peril. The players have a limited number of rounds before the monster breaches their defences, and to win they must defeat the final monster before time runs out.

If you want to dive into this new card game set in a retro-vintage video game RPG style, it is easy:
there's a tutorial to learn it!

And of course, you can check the options and find everything you want to know on the game page by clicking this link:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=noneshallpass

Developed and designed by Aaron Packer & Kendra Packer, the game is self-published and available here for purchase. Support the indies!

That's it for today!
Enjoy your days on BGA, and as always:
Take care and play fair!

You succeeded in Rauha? FAN-TAS-TIC! It's time for you to plan your next move in our megaverse where all boardgame worlds are connected!

The year is 2143: humans and robots are living together in harmony.
Since robots are unable to dream, humans have started making dream machines to solve this problem and help them out.

Your workshop will take part in the amazing MECH A DREAM project over the course of a week: make the most dreams for your robot by optimizing resources and the construction time needed by your machines.

A game of MECH A DREAM is played in several rounds, with each round symbolizing a day of work followed by an activation during the night.
The day phase happens in 3 successive parts: the morning, the afternoon and the evening.
You will need to manage your assistant, handle the best way for your robots to build machines, work on gathering dreams, and optimize the construction time of your dream machines along the conveyor belt of your workshop.
The night phase is a bit different and played simultaneously: it is time to activate your special effects!

It is always better to try a game for yourself, and you can by clicking this link NOW:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=mechadream

Nothing would have been possible without the very valuable work done by our very own dream-robots: darhf and lordalx, who made the game as pretty and playable as it is on a real table.
A dream needs to be published, and it is of course thanks to the authorization from the Blue Orange team, as well as the game designers Thomas Dupont and Antoni Guillen that it was brought to BGA.

Time for you to play!
At last, your mechanical friend will be able to answer the age-old question:

Do androids dream
of electric sheep?

And yes, that's a Friday release. Enjoy it, that's as rare as a shooting star...
Until next week, take care and play fair!

After millennia of sterility, life has sprung up again on Rauha. As a venerable Shaman, one of its five worlds has been entrusted to you. Your powers are divine and allow you to shape the environment in order to turn this world into a cradle of life energy, keeper of serenity, and harmony for the centuries to come.

Obtain the most victory points, represented as Life Energy, to win the game. You have 2 Ages to turn your world into an energetic core of Rauha. In Age 1, vegetation, terrain, and wildlife will appear. In Age 2, civilizations will thrive.

The game takes place over 4 rounds, each divided into 3 turns followed by a scoring phase. Each turn, you will follow 5 steps:
1. Simultaneously take all Biome cards from the satellite whose symbol matches the one beneath your Avatar on your Player board (moon or star).
2. Choose one card to place on any square of your Player board or discard to the Black Hole.
3. Receive a Divine Entity if you create a row or column of matching symbols on your Player board.
4. Activate your Avatar, plus any Divine Entities in the same row or column as your Avatar.
5. Finally move your Avatar one notch clockwise along the edge of your Player board, changing the row or column that will be activated on the next turn.

During the Scoring Phase, you will activate all your Biomes with Spore tokens and any Divine Entities you may have, gaining crystals and points as shown on the components.

This 45 minute, 2 to 5 player game can be played right now on Board Game Arena, by clicking the link below right now!
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=rauha

No games without designers or publishers: that's why we would love to thank Johannes Goupy and Théo Rivière, as well as GRRRE Games publishing for their help to bring RAUHA on the platform.

A huge thanks to the dedication and work done by Tisaac and firgon by developing the game and making it shine on Board Game Arena. A lot of love was involved, and you can witness it right now from the game replays.

That's it for this Wednesday Release Time!
See you next week with another game... or two.
Until then, take care and play fair.

In Hokito, you want to dominate the opponent's pieces- and possibly your own- to create valuable towers that will score for you at game's end.

Each player has 18 pieces, six each with 1, 2, or 3 marks, with one player taking black pieces and the other white. Gameplay takes place on a 6x6 board; to set up, you each spread your 18 pieces at random on your half of the board. The black player begins.

On a turn, choose a piece or a stack of more than one piece that you control because your color is on top, and move that piece/stack so that it lands on one of the same height: i.e., a single piece needs to land on a single piece and a stack on a stack. You move the piece/stack orthogonally 1-3 occupied spaces, with the number of moves matching the number of marks on the topmost piece. You can move the piece/stack at a 90º angle when crossing an occupied space, so a piece/stack that moves 2 can move orthogonally to the second occupied space (as long as it's occupied with a piece/stack) or it can make a single 90º turn as it passes over the first occupied space.

As more spaces become empty, fewer movement options remain open to players, and as soon as any one player cannot move, the game ends. Each player then scores for the pieces and stacks they control. The value of a piece/stack is the number of marks on the topmost piece multiplied by the number of pieces in that stack, which means a piece on its own is worth only 1-3 points. Whoever has the higher score wins.

Click here to learn how to play this gem through a tutorial, or
simply start a game from here:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=hokito

We would like to thank Claude Leroy, the game designer, as well as the Cosmoludo team for their authorization to bring the game to the platform.
Best of all was to have BLOIZO develop the game for the platform. We would like to thank him a lot for this.

That's it for this Wednesday!
And if you're coming to Cannes (France) this week, don't miss our booth at the Festival International Des Jeux de Cannes fair!
Take care and play... fair!