Dominion is my favorite board game (well, card game), and with Kyra off on a mission, I don’t have a worthy opponent to play against. Luckily at Gen Con, Dirk caught the bug and decided he loves Dominion as much as I do. Unfortunately we live 800 miles apart, so we can’t get together often.
Enter Dominion Online, which is a web-based version of Dominion that does a great job with the game mechanics. Of course it’s not quite like playing face-to-face over a table, but it’s about as close as you can get. So Dirk and I have been spending a few Saturday mornings here and there playing against one another.
Today we connected via Google Hangouts (after trying Discord, which had horrible echo problems), so I was able to see his thoughtful expression as he considered what to play.
(He admits his webcam is terrible, which is why he looks all blurry.) It’s fun to taunt one another during the games, or scream occasionally at a really good– or really bad– turn. Both of us have sons who spend time in video game chats where they do exactly that.
Unfortunately I can no longer crush Dirk in every game. The padawan has learned much from the master, and now we’re more evenly matched. That’s more fun anyway. I should point out, however, that in the worldwide Dominion rankings, I’m in 6,364th (level 43 player, whatever that means) place while Dirk languishes back in 13,170th place and level 39…