If the recent scandal over on Facebook regarding the popularity of Scrabulous, and the subsequent actions by the makers of Scrabble to make sure they got the spotlight from the huge number of users, has taught us anything, it's that online board games are as much fun, if not more, as real life ones. With this in mind, I decided to check out some inworld versions of popular games, to find out the best and worst on offer.

Seeing that Scrabble was the inspiration for this little consumer test, I decided to find a product to give you the entertainment of the word based game while in SL. The best and most popular version appears to be SelbyWord by Moore or Less Creations. At 1499$L it is one of the pricier games in our list, and at 229 Prims it is unfortunately the most prim heavy, meaning that those with only small plots of land probably won't even want to bother thinking about buying themselves a copy, and rather go to one of the inworld pubs which allow you and up to 3 friends to use theirs. On the plus side, SelbyWord does come with a full manual, instructing how to set the game up, and explaining the rules and how to play, which is fortunate, seeing that, possibly due to the trouble the makers of Scrabulous got into, SelbyWord has some fairly big changes from your standard Scrabble. The introduction of half score spaces and scoring being based on where you place tiles, rather than the tiles having intrinsic scores are fairly interesting innovations, but the fact that the scoring has changed so that you only get points for the tiles you put down rather than for the words you make, is frustrating for anyone who enjoys the original game to the point that you may decide to not even bother.


The next game is actually one that I have at my own SL abode, Chess from The SL Chess and Sudoku Club, rezzing at a reasonably mid range 73 Prims, and priced at only 390$L. The board does come with useage instructions but no rule explanation for those who might not know how to play the game, such as which pieces can go where, although it does stop you making an incorrect move with a piece. Unfortunately unlike the previous game, this is limited to only two players, meaning it might be a good choice for you and your significant other to play on a quiet night. The board is relatively simple, opting to go for a 2D display, rather than making more prim hungry three dimensional little pieces; and has a easy click piece, then click destination interface, and apart from trying to figure out which is the King and which is the Queen, is no problem to use.


Simple is not a word I would necessarily use for the inworld version of Ludo I found, named "Avatar Don't Worry" and made by Takeshi Newman Games. The board game itself is only 18 Prims, making it the lowest prim game in the selection, but can be bought with a table and chairs for it, but since the game alone is 650$L, while adding the extremely basic furniture adds another 75$L to the price, I personally would just place the board on a table of your own instead of forking out for the frankly ugly table and chairs. The game comes with no instructions whatsoever, which is a massive shame, since it's been a while since me and my friends had played this, so when we sat down to play, we were kinda having to figure it as we went. We were doing ok at recalling the rules, but were fought every step of the way by the games horrible controls, thus leading to us missing turns, or not understanding why the lag riddled die sent me 3 spaces, when I still saw a 6 on it from the last person's turn. It got so bad that, to be honest, we couldn't make it through one game, and gave up.


Another game which we unfortunately had more rule problems with was Mah Jongg by Chiyosuke Wise. This game narrowly took the prize for most expensive, at a princely 2000$L, and was second highest on the prim count, at a hefty 199 prims. So, why bother, you may ask? Well, it is very well built, and although it has no instructions, it does work with a free HUD that it gives all of the 2-4 players. However, here is where we get the point that this might not be the best review. You see, none of my party had any experience with this game, so the lack of instructions made life a little tricky. Learning from last time, we looked up websites with the rules (such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong), but for some reason the more we thought we had got a grip on the rules, the more we scored badly and were thrashed by the computer player. However, what I can say is we did have fun trying to figure out the massively complex rules, and anyone who does understand how to play, and has the money and space for a table, will probably have even more fun with this finely created game.


I hungered for something a little simpler and less confusing at this point, and fortunately found Connect 4 by AZT. Now this game, although unsophisticated, wins the top prize of price, at a mere 300$L for a Transfer/No Copy version, although it's 1000$L for the Copy/No Trans one and Gambling version costs even more. However, we're concentrating on the home use one, so with it's price crown in place, and coming in second on it's prim count by just one prim (19 in total) this wins the award for being user friendly regardless of size of wallet, or size of your land. As you would expect being basic in price and basic in prims, it's fairly basic in design, but then, it's thankfully also basic in rules, meaning that you and your other player should have absolutely no problems using it, which is good, since there are useage instructions but no actual rule documentation. I will say, that if you can't understand the rules of Connect 4, you probably can't also figure out how to download and log into SL, so that's not really a worry. So, taking into account price, prims, and ease of use, we have our winner...


Only we don't. You see, Connect 4 is a joy to use, and is a superb buy that any resident should get many hours of happy use out of. But, my recommendation for best board game is not the cheapest (at 1995$L it's the second most expensive), and is not the least prims (it comes 4th out of 6 on our list, at 103 Prims). It does at least have instructions, and a superb user interface that helps guide you along, but has no rule book par se. So, why is my recommendation out of all the games, the Second Life version of Monopoly called SLopoly, by K.R. Engineering? Well, for one very important reason... It's the most FUN! In fact, our very own Trin has now become thoroughly addicted to this game, complete with it's SL specific styling, with all the properties being renamed to popular sims, the train stations being replaced by infohubs, and the chance and community chest cards all talking about things inworld we will all be familiar with, such as "You won Best in an Arbitrary Colour competition, collect 10$L" or "The Asset server lost your item. Linden's look up from their desks and do nothing about it, Lose 100$L". The game supports anything from 2 to 8 players, and can provide hours of frustration or joy, and either way, will keep you coming back for more. If you aren't convinced, have a go for yourself on the copy I have out at our Monema Office. Oh, and if your friends are all too busy to play, you might well be able to convince Trin to try to kick your ass at it.