Even in the age of blockbuster digital hits like World of Warcraft and Civilization: Beyond Earth, there are still plenty of gamers who like playing role-playing and strategy games the old-fashioned way: gathered around the table with friends, food, and drink.
Still, friends move away, and gamers can find themselves living far from anyone who shares their hobby for Dungeons & Dragons or Settlers of Catan, says Nolan T. Jones, one of the creators of Roll20, an app that lets gamers play their favorite tabletop games remotely by video chatting, moving game tokens, and rolling virtual dice through their web browsers. Since it launched in 2012, it’s signed up more than 700,000 players.
“I think a large part of our success was this was a program made for necessity–it wasn’t a business,” Jones says.
Jones and his two cofounders started building the in-browser app in 2012 to play with each other and with friends who were living in different cities, then decided to raise funds on Kickstarter and develop it into a commercial product. Visitors can play dozens of different games, with various editions of Dungeons and Dragons and the related game Pathfinder among the most popular. Most play for free, it relies on donations and some paid subscriptions, allow users extra features and additional storage space. There’s a bustling community forum and even scripting functions, which, coupled with an API, allows players to track games and program their next moves.
Next, the Kansas-based company plans to reemphasize the analog gaming experience, with a tablet app for iOS and Android that will bring some of the advantages of its online platform back to gamers who are playing in person. The app, expected in early 2015, will help players by handling the mechanics of tracking character stats and running numbers while they enjoy the social experience of sitting around a table with friends face-to-face.
Some players are already loading the web-based app on tablets to do just that, Jones says.
“Currently it’s the web application being used on the tablet,” he says. “It works, and I’ve definitely used it myself in that way, but why not make it better with as many people as are starting to use us in this way?”