Another Point of Singularity

"ZunTzu is a tool that allows you to play boardgames and wargames live with your friends over the Internet. See the FAQ for more info.

It is still a work in progress, but a beta version is already available.

Features

• Real time play over the Internet.
• Built-in voice communication.
• Intuitive user interface close to the game table experience.
• High quality DirectX graphics and animations.
• Animated 3D dice.
• Intuitive management of counter stacks.
• Simplified creation of your own game boxes by importing graphics files for your maps and counters."

Now here's the upside. You don't need dedicated servers to play, like you do with Vassal. The player iwth the strongest Net connection becomes the host. There's also built in Voice over IP chat. Admittedly, you can do the same thing with SKYPE, but it's kind of nice to have it built in -- one less thing you have to switch to. The Software appears to make use of DIRECTX graphics, XML and some form of peer to peer networking.

The interface is very, very slick. I'm quite taken with it. Here's a screenshot of a game in progress, using a recent Vae Victis as an example.

I'll be giving it a try and then reviewing it more thoroughly on PBEM Emporium.

My first impressions are very favorable. There are some great features here. However, in my opinion, their method of creating gameboxes is not as easy as they say it is and is extremely labor intensive.

ZunTsu seems to be suported well and the developers (whom appear to be French) are standing behind the product. It's free, with a donation suggested.