Gstone Games
eXplore board games
eXpand your friends
eXterminate boredom
For veteran board gamers, we know that having games is never the problem. But, finding enough good peeps, a convenient location, and a suitable time to play, and then knowing which of the many games in your collection is the right one for you to break out for your crew…
For newbie board gamers, the board game world may look geeky and intimidating form the outside, and the problem is the barrier to entry may seem insurmountable, so maybe you never get in and realize just how cool this new world really is…
How to overcome these challenges? Go on a quest? Hire a guide? Or…
TADA!
Gstone – an app for EVERYTHING board games.
WHAT IS GSTONE?
The “G“ in Gstone stands for “Gathering”, like a mythical rune stone that brings heroes together for a grand adventure. And gathering is the heart of our app, and hence our name. Gstone is like that mythic rune stone, it makes it easier for board game adventurers - new and veteran players alike - to find the games they want to play, gamers to play those games with and game locations where they can play those games with the gamers they want to play with! And all of this is FREE for gamers!
In short, Gstone is a one-stop service application that brings the existing board gaming community closer, and provides gamers with friendly access and easy tools that enables them to have their adventure – in board games!
KEY FEATURES
• Home
o A place to share your day-to-day board game related activities, including your friends and fans game rating, their new collections, game events etc.
• Discover:
o Games Database: find games, rules, videos, user comments & ratings, and much more!
Sort & filter out the most suitable game for your party
o Playgrounds: find places to play in your city!
• Gathering:
o Find game events in your city, join in a new game event or gather up your friends and create a game event!
• Me:
o Your game collection, ratings, favorites, fans, friends and more.
We’re currently updating the app on a bi-weekly basis, keep your app updated and find out cool new functions we’re planning to launch including a BG ladder system, game clubs, game news etc.
VALUE
For Gamers:
• Find Players: find players in your local area by attending or gathering a game event! Soon, we’ll launch the game club function so players can find other players via game clubs!
• Find Games: discover new and upcoming games based on various listings, you can filter out the perfect game in your collection for your party by cross-filtering based on the number of players, length of play, category, difficulty, year, age group and more!
• Discover Game Events: players can find game events/game nights nearby. We are working on gathering hosts (including board game cafes and private organizers) to post game events on Gstone for players to attend. Eventually we’ll do it for game matches/conventions too!
• Find Playgrounds: find game venues nearby to play and meet new people!
For Board Game Cafes
• The Board Game Menu: make your own game menu, and recommend the perfect game for your guests in seconds (thru filtering function)!
• Host events: publish events in your area, get more customers for your game café!
• Gather fans: gather friends and fans for your store
• Rules rules rules: it’s so much trouble having to bring rulebooks everywhere, just read them on Gstone. Or if you can convince customers to take a look at the rulebook on Gstone before they arrive ;)
For Publishers & Designers:
• Organize testplays: designers can organize testplays via Gstone’s Gathering function.
• Operate your game: customers service your own target customers...let’s say they don’t understand a certain vague rule...you can explain it to them directly! Talk to players directly to obtain their comments and feedback.
• More Big Data: big data analysis on gamer’s preferences
Category : Entertainment
Reviews (30)
You can sign in without a phone number now, but it's not obvious how to do it. Looks like they still need buy in from local venues. The closest one showing up for me is almost an hour away, but there's several in the area. Adding a collection is easy. Some of the wording and descriptions of app functions look like they've been machine translated into English from another language, but it's easy to use.
I love the idea of this app. Find people, play more games! The UI is quite intuitive and the developers keep updating and adding new features and improvements. I once sent in a question and their response came quite quickly, so that was nice. Can't wait to see more functions. Here in Beijing, it's helpful to find nearby events. Hope they roll it out to more people around the world. The more users, the better experience.
The Dice Tower sent me this way. I like it so far except I live in rural Illinois. None of the options for location are anywhere near where I am. Not that I expected to find anyone near me, but it would be nice to not pick up people who live over 3 hours away due to just picking a random place in Illinois. Other than that, I like what I see in the time I have played around in the app.
Nice clean design. Can add favorites and wishlist. Can meet up with like minded players. Only problem so far is not many people have signed up to used it. I can not find any place near me to group up. And I live in a city that has million plus people.
Good interface, nice app. Some features will only work when more people around me start using it, but it's a good concept. Only thing lacking for me is the ability to log plays.
Good concept but lacking in execution. Crashed 3 times in the first five minutes of just trying to set myself up. Does not synch to BGG. I will try again if the issues are fixed.
A Great Idea The app is really simple, clean, and good looking. It has plenty of information and is growing all the time. A good way for local people to find meet ups and get board game related info. It works smoothly without any hiccups here in China. Here's hoping it helps bring more gamers together!
The interface seemed usable but there were far to many red flags. Some in the form of other reviewers/users (real or not), excessive permissions, the company website saying nothing about the company, etc. Again, too many red flags for me to want to use this when there are other solutions available.
Very glitchy. Loads well some of the time but often the screen whites out and then refreshes for no reason. The idea is cool, but the app needs some work
The app seems fine, but the gathering feature is only useful with critical mass. If nobody in your area is using the app, it's pretty useless.
Buggy, odd design choices (like a 10 point rating scale but only 5 stars to rate with), and no way to import game collection from bgg.
I like the design, nice and clean. So many interesting games for everyone. Keep going guys hope to see more games and will recommend to my friends as well
Looks like it has the potential to keep a wishlist better than the BGG app but I'll never know because I'm not going to register if I have to give my phone number. Neutral star rating of 3 since I never registered or used the app.
Can only find boardgames no locations or people who play. Perhaps lack of users? Once i closed out of the app reopening the app does nothing. Just get a nice background of a stone G. Uninstalling.
Looks promising but crashes regularly and overall quality of their presence is low. Although Gstone says this is a beta app they market it as a production app both on Dice Tower and in the Google Play store. I'm happy to work with betas, but they need to be transparent on what is and is not a beta feature. Also don't say you update twice a month if you don't. App last update was 5th and it's now 25th.
The best board game tool app I have seen so far, even though there’s still not a lot of data – the Dice Tower crew said it’s still in beta, but wow, impressive on the work.
Looks promising but cannot create event because it won't let me save date and times once I select them. Also no way (other than this) to offer feedback?
Myself and three of my friends just downloaded this app so we could use it at Dice Tower West and we all keep getting a connection failed error.
Requiring my phone number to register is a complete non-starter. Good luck getting people to sign up with that roadblock.
It won't send me a code so I can't sign up. Will update rating if it's fixed - from Canada
Indeed the app crashes constantly, never managed to import data from BGG...
Wanted to add in all our Game Day dates for 2020 but will only add if it's within 30 days...
I don't want to give my phone number so tried third party log-in(Facebook) ... And it just brings me back to wanting my phone number. Currently useless.
Needs alphabetical sorting please please? Other than that, great so far.
I think the app is just in the US at the moment as I cannot find my city yet. When will it launch in Germany?
I think the app is just in the US at the moment as I cannot find my city yet. When will it launch in Germany?
Good job development team, the interface is so nice!
. Cool club function, can the app automatically notify my gamer friends on the app when i publish events?
Good app, really needs a way to sort games alphabetically though
Edit: Developer response does not mention the ability to alter WiFi connections. Why does the app need access to READ_PHONE_STATE and GET_TASKS? As far as I can tell this app does not have the ability to take photos, record audio or make phone calls. However, it has permission to access the camera, microphone and phone-call features even when you're not actively using the app. It also is able to alter existing WiFi connections (meaning it could potentially deactivate your VPN connection). I think the concept of this app is really great but it needs to be a LOT more reasonable about what it requires access to. I think the company should be transparent about what data it is collecting and how that data is being used. Until then this is a hard pass.