I am sorry that so many of you are angry at me for not letting you know about the situation ahead of time. Of course, that was an option I considered. I honestly think that there was very little chance that a viable solution could come up. The problem was not only a problem of money, it was also a complex technical problem.
Many of you compare BGA and Happy Meeple, saying HM was more cozy, etc. Of course, that's what you think as many of you decided to go to HM rather than BGA. Over the years though, I heard quite a few (honest) people tell me that HM felt outdated (like a website from 2000). Not being a design guy, I failed to understand what was exactly wrong and how to correct it but I was pretty certain that they were right. It was probably simple things like shadows and rounded corners, or the font. But I never really delved into the issue.
Regarding BGA criticism, I think you are being too harsh. I created a test account a few days ago and was quite impressed with the way they were explaining new players what the options were and what they exactly meant. I think they did a fantastic job on that. I have also played quite a few games on BGA myself and was also impressed with many of their tutorials. To be honest, I was always proud of my tutorials here and felt a bit disappointed that they had managed to do a good job at that too. For a long time, HM was the only platform with tutorials. People who really know the game and love it decide to take on the task of designing these tutorials and that's probably why they are so good. I should add that in the last few years, it is noticeable that they hired designers. The last iteration of the platform is really neat and is a noticeable improvement on the previous years, and even on last year.
BGA offers many more options than HM. We always kept things standardised here, not offering any game variant for example. BGA lets you play with more than 2 players. It also offers asynchronous (turn by turn) play which is a more relaxed way of playing (for example, one move per day) than real-time play. They offer game variants. Most importantly they let you play blockbusters like Ticket To Ride or Catan.
So please be patient with BGA, they have a lot to offer. And the interface is not as daunting as it may seem especially after they improved it so much.
Finally, let me suggest you a few games that Happy Meeple players may particularly like. Most are quick-playing:
- Ticket To Ride (a must)
- Can't Stop (Push your luck that I should have put on HM but stupidly discarded)
- On Tour (another contender for HM)
- Patchwork (best-seller)
- Welcome (best-seller, Flip and Write, excellent)
- Splendor (best-seller, engine building)
- Chakra (could have been on HM)
- Azul (best-seller)
- Forest Shuffle (excellent but a slightly more complex)
- Sea Salt & Paper
- Lucky Numbers (simple like Finito)
- Kingdomino (best-seller, simple rules)
- Faraway (new and good, award-winning, quick engine-building)
- Akropolis (award-winning)
- Jaipur (quite good, mid complexity)
- Century spice road (quick engine-building)
- Diamant (oldie but goodie, good with many people)
I will update this list as new suggestions come up.
