Board Game Online

Board Game Online is an interactive, HTML-based board game with a ridiculous premise and a slew of references. Gameplay is a mixture of pure luck and experienced strategy, and the developers have really thought of everything.

The site was relaunched on June 27, 2014, giving it fancier site graphics, a better chat system and a way to tell what was all in a game before you joined in. They also added a friends and foes system, Personal Messages, and Presets to save for games. It also features the donation thermometer being animated, filling up with coins as people donate and the stretch goals explode. More features will be added as time goes on.

Relevant tropes:

• Academy of Adventure: An expansion is literally all about the Academy of Adventure - it's very aptly named. Giving up a turn and some rupees allows you learn a passive skill taught by such teachers as Baron Munchausen, Dumbledore, Axel Foley, Mathias Shaw and Doctor Gregory House.
• Accidental Suicide: Can happen through certain actions. A common example is when one player pulls a gun on another player. If the target has Hypno Goggles, they can use them during the target selection phase and make the shooter shoot himself instead. Interestingly, the game did not start off with Death Is Cheap, as it used to be extremely difficult or expensive to prevent dying despite how frequently it came. Later updates made this much more forgiving.
• Anachronism Stew: Teleporters, lassoes and a hookshot? Just your run of the mill inventory. Nobody raises an eyebrow.
• Ancient Tomb: The ancient pyramid is also home to an ancient mummy and deadly trap.
  • Temple of Doom: Very rarely do players manage to make it to the end and return with the treasure- so rarely, in fact, it's an actual alternate win condition.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: The horn is rather fun to honk!
  • Subverted by the fact you can pick up horns normally in the game anyway if one of the players is a donator.
  • And don't forget the titles, or the fonts, or the in-game text color choices, or the taunts, or the dice...
• At the Crossroads: An event in the game is an actual crossroads, where you can pick between four and five events.
  • The item Cards of Fate also have this effect.
• Baa-Bomb: You can buy exploding sheep.
• Badass Santa: In the Christmas-special event, you can gain a buff called "Nice" which will cause you to receive a gift of your choice from Santa. This gift can include a pogo-stick, a tractor beam, or a goddamn lightsaber. Where does Santa get all those wonderful toys?
• Bears Are Bad News: Sometimes, a bear will break out of a zoo and become a randomly-encountered hazard that forces you to run backward a few spaces (unless you have an item capable of placating it).
• Black Comedy: When the humor isn't referential, it's pitch dark. Or both.
• Black Comedy Rape: There are a few events that involve being on the receiving end of non-consensual sex, and certain items and skills, such as the Dildo, Chloroform, Free Drink, and the Succubus' "Seduction" allow you to rape other players. In fact, this is central to the Succubus' gameplay, as they want to be infected with as many STDs as possible while spreading them to other players in order to debilitate them. Given the Black Comedy tone of the game, none of this is played particularly seriously.
• Blinding Camera Flash: Using a Camera, a player can temporary blind another. If the blinded player skips the camera operator gets 4-6 rupees and a small chance to create a Torn Memento half.
• Board Game: The game is BOARD GAME ONLINE, after all.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Notably averted, as while donating can grant access to special and powerful classes, said classes are available to all players in the session so long as the sum of every player's donations is above a certain threshold. The perks that aren't shared with everyone in the room are cosmetic or fun things that don't affect gameplay.
• Bullet Seed: Eat a melon and you get 3 seeds that can be spat to knock nearby (within 10 spaces) players backwards.
• Butterfly of Doom: One possible outcome of time-traveling to prehistoric times is that you step on and kill a fly. When you come back, everyone's names are replaced with random celebrity names, e.g. Oprah Winfrey or Saddam Hussein. Sometimes the finishing line moves slightly too.
• Catapult to Glory: One of the random events. You can launch certain items or yourself. It usullay kills you, but can be survivable with the Parachute, or even just by pure luck.
• Character Class System: Several classes can be chosen from during a game, giving you certain buffs and special skills. Donators can create games that allow two classes to be chosen, and sometimes there are Triple Classes available.
• Cosmetic Award: You can win awards for drinking beer and winning in particular ways. They don't do anything, naturally.
  • And, as of 2012, actual achievements, all cosmetic.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: So, so many. Ever felt like launching an ice pick into someone's skull via catapult? Or setting a Tyrannosaurus Rex loose on an unsuspecting public?
• Death Is Cheap: Initially averted; while death never lasted for more than 3 consecutive turns and came often, it used to be extremely difficult or expensive to prevent it, especially while already dead. As time when on, updates and new items came, and classes got rebalanced, it became very easy to die several times in a single game and still never leave first place, or even never see the "you're dead!" screen. On the other side of the coin, sometimes dying can help you in a few cases where you want to avoid certain threats that can only hamper you while alive.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Horribly, horribly averted.
• Double-Edged Buff: As part of the various items and skills you can gain as you play, some of these items offer you both an advantage and a disadvantage. This mostly applies to various drugs, such as:
  • Crystal meth, which gives you immunity from being skipped or incapacitated, but also dehydrates you and gives you six turns to find a drink before you die.
  • GHB, which moves you a spot forward but incapacitates you.
  • The vague "syringe" item, which gives you two random positive effects and one random disease.
  • Cocaine, which makes you hyper (and thus faster) but also gives you an addiction, which can lead to severe side effects, such as burnout or death.
• Duel to the Death: Specifically. A shootout to the death. The loser dies, the winner keeps walking. Nobody gets shot? They both die.
• Extendo Boxing Glove: The Extendo Fist can be fired forwards or backwards 5-7 spaces to knock another player backwards and incapacitate them, if it can't hit anyone it will knock you out instead.
• Extreme Omnivore: Getting the Pac-Man skill allows you to eat other players and a few of the living hazards like the bear. Eating people rewards you with Rupees, and eating enough gives you a rare item and achievements.
• Gay Cowboy: There are a couple in the Wild West, of the more "stereotypically flamboyant" variety.
• Genre Roulette: The jukebox, especially considering there are no song/genre filtering options available, and aside from muting the YouTube player or sound card, no way of just skipping a song.
• Guide Dang It!: Some of the items and events are ridiculously obscure.
  • The "Salem's Destiny" event is the biggest example: You first have to have a scroll with Spell Shield and a Pocket Ball, then go to the Magic Shop. While at the entrance, cast Spell Shield on yourself. Buy a Light Wand there, charge it with Remove Curse, then try to leave. When prompted, try to catch the cat with the Pocket Ball, but it will (inevitably) fail. Your Spell Shield will block the Blinding spell that you usually get from trying to catch the cat, so you can see the cat escape. Use your Remove Curse wand on the cat and the cat will be freed, giving you the item "Decursed Collar"... and that's just the first part.
• Hand of Glory: One of the artifacts that can be collected in the Archeology Dig Site. It grants the player passive abilities (sneaky, arcane vision and +1 speed) and the ability to a sacrifice one living item while on fire to remove the flame and root all enemy players within 25 spaces for 5 whole turns.
• Hilarity Sues: The point of the premium class Lawyer.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: All the freaking time. Having this happen to you several times is likely how you'll learn to play the game.
  • A common example is when one player pulls a gun on another player. If the target has Hypno Goggles, they can use them during the target selection phase and make the shooter shoot himself instead.
  • Illusionists are tricky bastards who like to sneak fake items into other players inventories, causing instant death if they're used. If the burdened player has Blessing of Vengeance active however, using the fake item results in both the target and the Illusionist dying, with the Blessing reviving the target immediately afterward.
  • Inexperienced players will drop mines or TNT into a group of opponents and then use other items to escape from the pack before detonating them. More often than not this results in a skilled player using a Lasso or Tractor Beam to drag him back, either saving everyone's bacon or not noticing his re-positioning fast enough.
• Holiday Mode: Santa, snow and shenanigans for Christmas. Fireworks for New Year's Day. Love pacts for Valentine's Day. Scary shit for Halloween. Et cetera. (And all with achievements.)
• Holy Water: One of the items that can be purchased at the Church is a vial of Holy Water, which the player can drink to cure themselves of the various curses they can get inflicted with during the course of the game. It can also be used against enemies in certain events, like mummies, ghosts, and zombies. It can also used to make literal Holy Hand Grenade's.
• Garnishing the Story: How did the devs make the cave event more awesome? Add a dragon!
• I Have Many Names: Every new title you get in a game prefixes whatever you already had. It can get a little ridiculous if you keep accumulating them.
• In-Game Banking Services: The game features a bank the player can either store their money in, get life-insurance from, or attempt to rob.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Rarely, a purchased lightsaber will be purple, which kills everything on your space and within one space of you with a single swing. Murdering people is much easier when you don't have to be directly on top of them. It also doesn't lose energy over time as the regular laser blades do.
• Instant-Win Condition: Quite a few:
  • Escaping the pyramid with the Pharaoh's Treasure.
  • Combining Sausage, Eggs, Spam, and Bacon to make the English breakfast.
  • Getting 13 kills after using Jason's Mask.
  • Using the Completed Infinity Gauntlet.
• Interface Screw: The spell Blind blacks out the entire interface for a few seconds. Hopefully you don't need to get rid of a bomb.
• Intoxication Mechanic: Drugs and alcohol affect the player in different ways. While alcohol mostly just gives the player an Alcohol Hic, drugs can have a variety of buffs and debuffs. Meth, for example, gives the player extreme focus and immunity, but also dehydration; weed makes you stoned and hungry, and cocaine gives you boosted speed, with the chance for addiction and burnout to follow.
• Karmic Death:
  • Inverted in that you must sometimes gather enough karma to recincarnate after you die.
  • Played straight with the spells Living Bomb, which will most likely explode your attacker along with any other unfortunate sap close to you, and Blessing of Vengeance, which kills your murderer and revives you on the spot.
• Laser Blade: Lightsabers are genuine items in the game, commonly found in the Future Shop. They function the same way as Swords, just with a battery instead of a static three uses and cutting through Shields easily. The color of lightsaber you get is decided at random.
• Magical Defibrillator: Can be used to bring any player back on the same space as the user, with the caveat of setting them on fire. Players can also make them literally magical by enchanting them to be Ethereal and reviving themselves whilst deceased. Finally the defibrillator can be used to defeat the Small Golem at the Archaeology digs.
• Magic Potion: The Potion can trigger random events to happen the turn after the player drinks it.
• Moment Killer: Non-romantic example. This is an ability of the Lawyer class called "Objection!", and they are hated for it. When used, the current turn ends immediately and all actions current happening in that turn cease, no exceptions.
• Mundane Utility: You could use that Concoct skill to cure curses or steal the ability to No-Sell bullets. Or you could use it to ensure you get laid.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Due to the effects of several events, as well as some pre-game options, a very common name to see is Macho Macho Sorcerer Paladin Macho Incubus Vamic Baratheon.
• No, I Am Behind You: The Illusionist's passive skill has a chance of invoking this, causing the player to dodge backward one space if he's targeted with a melee weapon.
• No-Sell:
  • The "No." skill lets you do this when shot at.
  • Rarely, a player will find reflective shades. Any attempts to hypnotize that player results in incapacitation.
• Optional Sexual Encounter:
  • The brothel, though it's a crapshoot whether you get someone like Alizee or someone like the World's Ugliest Dog. Wearing Night-Vision Goggles or having Arcane Vision, however, will reveal who it is before you decide to sleep with them. The Mojo perk will make sure you never screw up though.
  • The gay cowboys in the Wild West event, though it's possible for women to sleep with them too. The sex will either result in one speed gained or one lost. That event also possesses a dark-room event similar to the Brothel.
  • The pirate ship's largest number of spaces available to move comes at the cost of having sex with the crew, and getting an STD for your trouble.
  • Though it's more of a trial you can walk out on, there's still the penis demon in the Archaeology digs...
• Post-Mortem Possessions: as Death Is Cheap, there's a verity of Items, effects and buffs that allow normal items (but not skills) to be used whilst dead.
  • Most items can be made/cursed Ethereal, making them useable only in death (unless you have the rare buff Ethereal Heart). This can be done by savvy players to use items (such as the Defibrillator) to Self-Revive.
  • The Ethereal Dagger is weapon that only be used when dead. Usually to take revenge on the player that killed you while they're still on the same board space as you.
  • The Ethereal Gloves can be made. These also allow item use without having to enchant the items Ethereal, but only have five uses.
  • Finally the rare buff Ethereal Soul can allow Item usage when dead like the gloves but has no degrading. It can either be temporary or last for the rest of the game.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: An easy way to stop a potential shooting, if you have a pair of Hypno-Glasses handy.
• Randomized Transformation:
  • The Quantum Physicist class is entirely based on RNG. One of their abilities involves changing items into other random items, which can sometimes affect items in other player's inventories.
  • The Improbability Device can be used to transform items into other items.
  • The Dark Spell "Polymorph" can turn a player into a random animal, forcing them to gain karma to turn back.
• Rasputinian Death: Try using an Improbability Device inside the Pyramid.
• Reference Overdosed: More than half of the game is a reference to, well, everything.
  • There are four reference events that can affect what events happen throughout the rest of a game: Adventure Time, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, and Rick and Morty.
• Russian Roulette: You can challenge an opponent to this in the Indian Casino.
• Share the Sickness: if you're infected with an STD, having sex with other players will infect them. This is central to the playstyle of the Succubus class, which is passively immune to the negative effects of STDs, encouraging them to catch 'em all, and has a skill allowing them to seduce other players to spread the diseases or receive new ones.
• Shop Fodder: The "Useless Valuable" can be found in random events. It is completely worthless to anyone except the Pawn Shop owner, who will buy it for 25 Rupees.
• Succubi and Incubi: The Incubus/Succubus class can seduce and have sex with other players, passing and gaining STDs.
• Take That!: One event has the player entering a bar in Indiana, and beating up the bartender. This is a reference to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in late March 2015, which allows business owners to ignore anti-discrimination laws on religious grounds. This was later changed to a general celebration of America being officially pro-gay-marriage.
  • One Event allows players to get three random hats from an Image Macro of Vladimir Putin. Post 2022 added an option to use a sunflower (a national symbol of Ukraine) to scare the shit out of him, getting all the hats and causing Putin to run away whilst dropping a Fake Fake Turd.
• Tempting Fate: If you click on your rupees to brag about how many you have, there's a chance you'll lose some.
• Thanatos Gambit: There are actually a few perks to being dead at the right time; Guns and Arrows won't cause you to run backward, to name one. A well-timed suicide when you're nearing the finish and everyone is getting ready to shoot you is a good way to secure a win. Dying in the middle of an event, for example, can even stop the bear from moving you backwards.
  • Are you miles ahead of the rest of the competition? Everyone getting ready to kill you? Kill yourself as soon as your turn ends. They'll have no choice but to kill each other to avoid wasting resources.
  • If you're really lucky you can get an FSM Afterlife, which allows you to keep rolling the dice to move even while dead and revive whenever you want. The only way to stop this is to be forcibly resurrected by another player, which can be difficult if none of them is a Priest.
• The Many Deaths of You: Don't ever expect an easy game: death can happen anywhere, anytime, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. It's sometimes better to sit back and enjoy the ride; a good part of the game's humor lies in the over-the-top ways players can die.
• Time Machine: Another one of the random events. It can take you to the far past, the Middle Ages, or hundreds of years into the future, but strangely never into The Wild West.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: A good number of the deaths in the game can be attributed to cartoonish items interacting with a realistic setting. For example, the ACME Magnet attracting everything metallic to you also includes swords and grenades and launching yourself forward from a catapult has a high chance of you simply going splat upon landing.
• Unlockable Content: Averted, for the most part. Almost all of the content is immediately available to free players. Six classes (Illusionist, Lawyer, Druid, Time Twister, Enchanter, and Warlock), however, require you to either play with someone who's donated or donate some euros yourself.
  • Three classes (Bard, Ranger, Wordsmith) require spending enough Power Points to unlock them.
• Where's the Kaboom?: Sometimes, the time bomb doesn't explode. It is even accompanied with the trope-naming quote.
• The Wild West: You can fight bandits for reputation or visit the Indian tribe and learn to shoot arrows.