Dominion Coming to Digital Devices...Again

Dominion Coming to Digital Devices...Again
Board Game: Dominion
Have you heard of the card game Dominion from Donald X. Vaccarino and Rio Grande Games? A game in which you start with a tiny deck of cards and use those cards to acquire more cards?

You probably have given that the game has been quite popular since its debut in 2008. Many people want to play Dominion online, whether they don't have others nearby or they're still trying to isolate, but multiple online set-ups for Dominion have come and gone over the years for one reason or another. I can't say much about those reasons as I've never tried to play the game online and I don't follow digital game news in general, but since I know that folks would like to play it, I thought I'd dip my toe into digital game news this one time to post the following:

Temple Gates Games — which has previously released digital versions of Race for the Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy, and Shards of Infinity — is working with Rio Grande Games to release a digital version of the game that I've already referenced multiple times in this post, i.e., Dominion, on Steam, iOS, and Android.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Promo screenshot of the base game cards

Here are excerpts from Temple Gates as to what you can expect from this adaptation:
Quote:
The app is a true adaptation of the board game, offering players the deck-building card play they love in a digital form. There are a few perks to this app that make playing digitally a snap:

• Automated score-keeping, setup & rules enforcement
• Jumbo mode for larger text
• Turbo mode to zoom through games quickly
• Neural net AI for solo play
• Async and real-time multiplayer
• Pass and play
• Cross platform compatible: Start on your phone, finish on your PC

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Another promo screenshot

Dominion is now entering a closed beta. It will launch as a free to play title. Players can play with the "Base" set of cards including 26 unique Kingdom cards, three basic Victory sets, and three basic Treasure sets. All expansions will be available for purchase at launch for five to ten USD dollars each...

The Dominion app will represent a new milestone for AI in gaming as the first commercial implementation of the techniques behind AlphaZero. Temple Gates built on the AI from Race for the Galaxy, but added a much deeper lookahead, which is important for Dominion's emphasis on over-arching strategy. This deeper lookahead is only possible to compute by using a neural network to guide the growth of the search tree. By including an embedding layer for the first time to our neural network, our AI now learns the value of components of each card, rather than the cards themselves, meaning that it can master not just the 500+ cards in existence, but also cards which have yet to be designed. We hope you enjoy this new AI, designed by Keldon Jones, renowned for the Race for the Galaxy AI.
Temple Gates Games notes that its digital version of Dominion is currently in beta for all platforms, and you can ask to be added to the beta testing, although spaces are limited. Notes the publisher, "This beta will open to a wider audience incrementally. The beta is free."

No release date for the app is included in the press release, but I believe that's generally the case for such things, yes?

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Wow, look at all those cards I don't recognize!

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