The phone thing is hugggeee for me. It is literally my go-to game for long flights/wait times. Playing solo (especially solo 2 spirits) is also just so much smoother. The lack of content sucks, but it does force me to learn some of the less flashy spirits better, since these days I mainly play NI spirits or aspects in my TTS/in person games. I would highly recommend getting it on your phone vs buying it on steam because to me thats the #1 reason for it to exist.
I actually really enjoy watching SI videos with TTS. Maybe it's because Red has conditioned me into liking it, but I like the flexibility to see different openings, as well as seeing Red's thought process more clearly.
For people not as savvy in SI as veterans like you, digital also has the massive advantage of not having to do everything yourself, the game handles everything and you only have to make the necessary choices as a player. This is massive I have found for all board games. I used to play for e.g. a lot of Arkham horror 2nd or Eldritch horror, or Mage Knight, and even with heavily scripted implementations it was a pain and a lot of wasted time. So I eventually abandoned TTS for the most part. Digital adaptations of most games otoh sail a lot more smoothly.
As a Viewer, i find digiital much easier to follow, but our group of 4 struggles with properly understanding some cards, events or scenario. We are grateful to sit back wnd let the digital game tell us what certain cards mean.
I don't know if there's many, but there are SOME animations in SI Digital. Cast Down has a cool animation where the pieces and the board tilt over and slide into the ocean for the Thresholded version, for example. Don't know if there are any other than that one, though.
I have played hundreds of games on TTS on Spirit Island, and I love it, of course. However, the speed at which you can play digitally and not worrying about the rules, makes the experience much better for me. It is true that there is a lot of content missing, but for someone who is new, or has been there for a short time and knows few spirits, I certainly strongly recommend the digital option.
Playing on the phone is a MASSIVE pro to digital. I hate having to be tied to the computer. This one can be played in bed/on the couch/ in a waiting room/ on public transit/(on the toilet haha). Absolutely invaluable.
As others have stated, Digital for me makes it much faster to play and since I play solo for the most part it is just a quality of life improvement over physical or TTS. (I am also very bad at TTS so if i had the same skill as Red then I may change my opinion). I have played multi-player with my daughter both physical and digital and we actually prefer digital and have not found it to be too cumbersome compared to manually managing the pieces, rules etc. I heavily support the game so will always buy both physical and digital but cannot wait for all content to be on digital. The phone option is also amazing for plane trips since it can be all offline!
I realize that the information in your videos need to remain consistent over time, but its perhaps ironic that on the day you dropped this video that the Steam Summer sale started. The SI bundle is currently $50 on sale, or $30 if you don't get Jagged Earth.
I couldnt agree more with you re: recorded gameplay on digital. Have asked for this myself. This would be perfect!! Visual effects would be nice to have...but I dont need them personally. But the replay feature...i think it's a must imo!
I just play digital (or rarely the cardboard game when I can) because I mainly play solo (would love to play more multiplayer but is hard when you are a responsible adult :D). For newer or not so experienced players digital helps a lot on rules management and understanding. It sucks that not all content is available, but I still have not learned all the available spirits. So far, the digital game updates faster than I can catch up, but I assume that is something very personal. I can see that if you are a super experienced player and you have played a thousand times then you are eager for new content. As a viewer, I definitely prefer digital or the cardboard game if it is properly shown. Watching on TTS is still hard to follow for me. Having said that if I want to see something like “Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine” then I have no choice…
I think it just depends on how often the user watches TTS. I don't have any issue playing or following TTS games. Watching TTS games are easy for me too!
I also find it a lot harder to follow playthroughs on TTS, but it depends on the player. I think Red's TTS videos are not that hard to follow. A few aspects of these are : - How much takebacks there are where a player does and undoes various moves on TTS which make it hard to keep track of what is going on - How much fast-paced scrolling and zooming in and out there is. One thing I noticed some TTS SI players do, is where they rapidly zoom in-out-in-out (possibly out of habit).
something else of note that you touched on by proxy but not directly (at least in the first 4 minutes) is the lack of aspects none of which are currently available in digital. and ofc as many others are pointing out the convenience of the digital game especially on mobile is MASSIVE but something I think that isn't being addressed as much is that the resource intensity of TTS vs the digital app is very very large if you have a shitty laptop and thats the main manner in which you play or if you are playing on the go and using a laptop (instead of your normal desktop setup) if it isn't powerful enough you might just not be able to handle running TTS smoothly while the digital app should hold up just fine.
Tha automated gameplay of digital makes it a my preferred way of playing. Im having a lot of difficulties even following a game on TTS but that is probably because i am not used to it. Cant get myself to invest time into tts as i rly hate the interface, but i own all expansions for digital for both steam and phone. It seems beginners prefer Digital while experienced players are more into TTS (guess they dont need automated gameplay and readability as much as new players, as i would guess they recognize every card just by looking the art on it)
Any chance the digital version will get a kind of "editor mode" where you are responsible yourself for moving pieces and therefore would allow freedom for houserules? Im very happy to have supported the developers for such a great game, but its quite frustrating to let go of the freedom Im used ro from the board game.
Personally, I play TTS because the spirits I want to play are on there. And before the NI spirits were on TTS, I mostly just played physical. I'm still supporting the official app, but it's the version I play the least.
I know that it's a lot of addons in total and I have no idea about how difficult is the implementation of the game to begin with, but when the numbers hit values like $70 it's hard to not nervously laugh at the "low budget" remark. I am not disinterested in Digital, but the fact that it already costs this much and will only get worse over time as long as the game is alive is making that a pretty tough ask.
Is digital actually 70$? That's crazy to me. Especially as an incomplete implementation when in all likelihood, if you're going out of your way to get the SI app, you've already played the board game and probably grabbed a copy of at least the core game. Yes board games in general are an expensive hobby even if you regularly clear out things that didn't end up having staying power with your group, but there's just not the overhead of logistics, manufacture, or even design and art for the app since they're adapting an existing board game. While I can understand people who value playing on the move, I personally would stick to ebooks for that price alone.
tbf to digital it IS advertised as early access and is discounted currently from its eventual final price but it is pretty expensive if you intend to get all of the DLC although still significantly cheaper than getting physical copies at least
So you think digital is better for solo? I was wondering what the best way would be to get into playing solo on TTS. I have both the Digital edition and the TTS sub.
When playing multiplayer with TTS does each person need to own TTS or can just one person and then invite other people to play. Also you said you have to subscribe to Spirit Island for TTS. Is that like a monthly thing or you just get the content for following them?
Each player needs to own TTS. Once you get TTS, you can see a list of different mods and apps that you can subscribe to. All Free. By subscribing to the mod, you get access to everything you see.
The only disadventage of DE is I cant enjoy almost all JE and all of NI contents. And its the enormous disadventage at all. If DE have all SI contents, there are no reasons to play SI with TTS but as you know it doesnt :) Thats why I prefer TTS
I have a friend who loves the digital implementation and hates TTS, and I can't tell why. The UI on digital is a lot better than it used to be, but it's still frustrating that I can't view my cards and the board at the same time, really.
You mean the player board or the island board? There's a little toggle somewhere like a plus sign that allows you to change how the player info is displayed. You you can see a mini view of the cards (hover to expand) tucked in the corner at the same time as the island. The more digital you play, the better you get at identifying the cards in this mini view since it previews cost/elements and I think targeting and part of the artwork. The player board isn't easily visible, this is true, but all the relevant stats are still viewable like card plays, energy income and elements. It's rare to need to peek at special rules mid game and you need it less and less the more you play that spirit so I really don't miss having the player board visible at all times. Overall, it's just adjusting to whatever you play more, TTS is very clunky for new players to get used to but play it enough and it's very seamless.
@@Kwprules That's true but your eyes can only read 1 card at a time anyway so I don't see the issue of having everything minimised by default. As you play you just get a basic idea of what the powers do (especially if you've already used that power this game) and you only need to pull up the power to read specifics like land targeting or how much defend exactly, etc. There's actually a really cool website that tests you Spirit Island card knowledge (Ryan Lackie did a video on it) and I've found that even just the elements, cost and speed of a power are enough to job my memory of which power I'm looking at. Of course you need to play many many games to get to that point but fortunately, the ability to quickly and conveniently play many many games is one of the strengths of the mobile game.
