Does Anyone Still Play-by-Mail?

manganese4 asks: "With the ever increasing complexity of games and the desire to buy the bleeding edge of hardware, does anyone still participate in games in the old-time 'Play by (e)Mail' format? Remember the anticipation of wondering if the snow storm was going to delay the post and prevent you from executing a crushing blow with your rook or pacing your emails to give your opponent time to become distracted by something else on the Usenet groups!"

Comments

KJC Games

[Xaviar21]

KJC Games
All their games are PBM. I particularly like Phoenix.

You betcha

[emiddlec]

You betcha. One place to play is itsyourturn.com, which will send you an email when it's your turn to move, etc. They currently have the following games (and variations) available:

• Backgammon, Pro Backgammon (BP), Anti-Backgammon (BA), Nackgammon (BN), and Backgammon Race (BR)
• Battleboats, Battleboats Plus, Dark Battleboats Plus (TD)
• Checkers: American (aka British Draughts (KX)), Pro Checkers (KP), Anti-Checkers (KA), Sparse Checkers (KS), and Crowded Checkers (KC).
• Checkers: International (aka International Draughts), Italian Checkers (KT), Polish Checkers (KL), and Russian Checkers (KR).
• Chess, King's Corner (CK), King's Fortress (CF), Horde (CH), Extinction (CE), Anti (CA), Dark (CD), Screen (CS), and Crazy Screen (CZ).
• Chinese Chess (Xiangqi)
• Go - 19x19 size board, 9x9 (G9) and 13x13 (G3)
• Go-Moku and Pente, Keryo-Pente (MK), Pro Go-Moku (MM), and Pro-Pente (MQ).
• Halma (Chinese Checkers) - 8x8 board, and 10x10
• Jamble
• Reversi, Reversi 10x10 (R1), Blackhole Reversi (RH), Anti-Reversi (RA), Blackhole Reversi 10x10 (RI), Anti-Reversi 10x10 (RB), Reversi 6x6 (R6), and Anti-Reversi 6x6 (RC)
• Sabotage (aka Stratego(TM)), Mini Sabotage (SM), Sabotage Rush (SR), and Sabotage Open Rush (SO). (Stratego(TM) is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc.)
• Stack4, Connectris (4C), Stack 4X4 (44), and Anti-Stack4 (4A)

XCOM Email

[ledow]

Whatever happened to X-COM PBEM? I remember there being a range of PBEM game being available in my local software outfit including X-Com (Called UFO in the UK) but they seem to have disappeared.

I don't know if they relied on a central server or something but I couldn't even see any copies going on eBay last I looked.

not email based, but in a similar spirit...

[bongoras]

Is Battlemaster. It's a turn based, reasonably slow paced MMRPG. To quote from the intro page:

BattleMaster is a web-based, team-oriented blend of strategy and roleplaying. You can play it as a strategy game with roleplaying elements, or as a roleplaying game with a strategy wargame background, whichever aspect suits you better.

BattleMaster is designed to be a light-weight game. Most online games require that you spend hours every day if you want to achieve anything, and reward only the most dedicated players, which usually means those with nothing else to do with their day.
BattleMaster is meant to be played alongside your other activities, and you will not gain much advantage from spending more than the few minutes a normal turn takes.
BattleMaster is also a game under active development. New features are being added and gameplay and balance are constantly tweaked to improve the game further.

PBM and PBEM alive and well

[Greg Lindahl]

I track more than 2,000 play by mail and play by email games in my pbm list.

Chess Variants

[pdboddy]

ChessVariants.com has a play by email system for Chess, and a whole whack of chess variants (Xiang Qi, Shogi, Shatranj, etc). So I'd say, yes, play by email is alive and kicking.

IECG

[thelenm]

Sure, check out the International Email Chess Group. I haven't played there much recently, but they have a good system for playing email games, with time limits and everything. They also run thematic tournaments every so often.