Realm Chat Site Info

Occasionally the question arises "what is this site?", or similar inquiries as to the choice of subject matter, how it began, etc... I originally intended to post a brief synopsis on or around the anniversary of the site back in October. Failing that I have decided to do it now in an attempt to provide some answers to these great mysteries, as well as a brief history and intention of future direction for those who might be interested in that sort of thing or are just new to the site an curious as to its intended purpose.

ORIGINS
I grew up playing games. First board games and old fashioned non-esports, then video games in the arcades and on home computers and gaming consoles. Like many who have been involved in gaming for any length of time, I have been witness to the evolution of the art form and seen many incredible advancements.

I have always enjoyed the social aspect of both competitive and cooperative multiplayer gaming. While this was once relegated to playing on the same screen, we have seen multiplayer gaming progress to lan gaming, dial-up and finally the massive online multiplayer environments that we currently enjoy. A big part of the communal/social aspect of online gaming is the function of chat which adds the ability to communicate common goals in the games or interests in general. I have been involved communities for several games over the years and met a lot of good people into similar hobbies.

When I get into a new game that does not feature integrated chat, I sometimes look elsewhere for community resources on the net. This was the case with a now defunct online implementation of the game Yugioh called Yugioh Duel Arena. I was surprised to find a fansite for the game that was called the Yugioh Duel Arena Community Fansite. The site featured a decent chat applet (the same one this site uses now) and a small community of people who played the game. As I got more involved with posting on the site and helping to administrate the chat, I became more interested in starting a site of my own. I wanted to make a site with a similar style but that was more open ended to the entire genre of digital card and board games (more on this in the next section). I have made sites in the past with more commercial motivations and have always wanted to make one on a hobby level, and these early interactions helped influence the type of design I would later attempt to achieve.

WHY DIGITAL CARD / BOARD GAMES?
Having decided to actually move forward with making a site, I next needed some kind of theme. As previously mentioned I often would search the net for fan sites and communities for new games I was getting into. I had began playing more games on tablets, and gravitated towards digital implementations of card and board games. I had spent some time in childhood playing all the classic board games with family and friends. I later had been introduced to more advanced games like Dungeons and Dragons and similar RPGS. Eventually I was introduced to more advanced hobbyist card and board games. These games took some of the mechanics of the old school board games, mixed them with rpg elements and tropes, and created more complex strategic interactions. It takes some skill to be able to make an engaging higher level experience with simple cardboard and dice. I was very interested in these well developed hobbyist table top games, but like many people who are new to them sometimes found learning semi complex sets of rules daunting. Additionally some of these games can have some complicated scoring and/or book keeping mechanisms. By bringing these games to the digital/video game format these mechanisms are handled by the computer or tablet, leaving the player(s) free to concentrate on the actual playing of the game. Further more, these digital versions vastly decrease the cost of buying big box small run hobbyist games, or trying to collect physical cards while getting involved in playing multiple tcgs (trading card games), which can be incredibly expensive. Playing digital versions of these games made it cost effective to actually get into and enjoy many excellent titles that would have otherwise been cost prohibitive.

Having taken notice that digital card and board game adaptations were quickly becoming one of my favorites of the many different kinds of video games that I enjoy, I decided to start searching the net for sites dedicated to them. I found that while there were a few big board/card gaming sites, some of which had "digital/video game" subsections, and a couple of sites themed around digital board games for the specific platform of Apple's iOS there were no dedicated sites that covered digital card and board gaming in general across all platforms. It is truly rare to search any hobby or topic on the net and not find a bevy of sites covering them but I had found one, a relatively niche sub-culture of video games upon which to base my site.

LOOKING FORWARD
Currently I keep an eye out for new digital card games and board games and try to profile them here within a reasonably short time of their release. The digital card and board gaming "scene" as it were is slowly gaining momentum with more people discovering them, more companies realizing their viability on modern devices and more classic and new games being released. In between the releases of new games I add profiles for digital card and board games that were released before the site's creation. Additionally I try to profile new games from independent developers that I find interesting, exceptionally well made or artistically unique. My eventual goal is to catalog the majority, or possibly even all of the digital adaptations of card and board games that have been released. While this may sound like an ambitious feat for a site that is ran purely as a hobby with no commercial motivations, it is technically possible due to the fact that there are a limited number of these types of games that were released in the past, and I am slowly whittling the list down.

I want to thank everyone who has been involved in helping with or providing inspiration for the site up to this point. The positive responses I have received and the comradery are what makes it worth while and motivate me to keep on doing it. I enjoy the hobby and writing about it. If anyone would like to get more involved or provide content or other input feel free to contact me at this link or in the live chat (note that I am always there but often afk). Thanks for reading and thanks again for stopping by.

Regards,

Smakx (Realm Chat Admin.)

Special thanks to the following sites for providing resources used in the creation of this site (in no particular order):

http://www.reddit.com/r/digitaltabletop/
https://boardgamegeek.com/
http://www.dicetower.com/
http://boardgaming.com/
http://ipadboardgames.org/
http://www.pockettactics.com/
http://toucharcade.com/
https://imgur.com/
https://www.youtube.com/
https://www.wikipedia.org/
https://www.forumotion.com/
https://www.chatwee.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/
https://play.google.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/ios/
http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?node=2350149011