******Contents******
1. Overview
2. The Good
3. The Bad
4. Conclusion
******Overview******
Look, GATE is just stupid easy and stupid simple. That's why I like it. If you are looking for something that closely resembles an actual tabletop without all the extra plugin/connection voodoo, then look no further.
This tool simulates an infinite table in a *3D* environment, which allows placement of objects/characters in the air, something I didn't know I needed in my life until after I had it.
But it makes sense, I wanted a tool that worked like a table, nothing more, and just like a table, you can look at it from the sides or whatever angles you want to get a better perspective or idea of the placement of objects (real life is also 3D, duh)
******The Good******
• 3D environment
• Unique "token" system
• Easy height system
• Customizable grid/background colors
• Only one buyer required
• Custom dice roller built in
• Game connection is simple and secure
• Active developmer who takes suggestions seriously
• No extra BS
As I said previously, this game is 3D. That means that you can import not only 3D objects but can place them at height. Personally, all of my players use 3D STL files that they downloaded from HeroForge, although you can import other types of files. The token system allows a pre-generated base or one without a regenerated base so that if you're 3D token has a base built in, then you don't need to worry about having two bases visible at the same time. Every token can be uniquely sized and scaled, they also can have their health bars displayed as a percentage ring on the outside of the token. Token. This is super useful when you don't want to give players the exact amount of damage they've done to a monster, but you want them to be able to see how healthy or not it is. The ring changes colors over time. So as you do more damage it gets progressively darker and darker to symbolize closer to death. The grid is super easy to navigate. There's an entire menu dedicated to customization and changing the grid type. Personally, we use a gray background with slightly lighter gray grid and a even lighter gray sky. But you can change that to be a green grid with darker green background and blue sky to simulate a. Grassy plains or whatever biome you might be in. What is especially useful is only one person needs to buy the game. I bought it, but all my players can download the demo from this page that you're viewing right now and use the demo to connect to a hosted game. $5 is really cheap, and it's way easier to do than having everybody set up accounts on different websites and paying several dollars each for a tool that is much more complex and less user-friendly. The dice roller is Great. Personally, we prefer to use our own dice and just say what we had over Discord, but for those fireballs that are cast at fifth level, 10d6 is just more dice than any of us care to actually roll. Throw it in the dice roller and let it do the simple math quickly. Game connections are easy, as soon as you join it pulls up every game and all players have to do is click on yours. If you're worried about some stranger joining, just set a password for your game and give it to your players before they connect. Anybody who doesn't know the password has no way of joining. The developer, Alderex#6573, is super active in the Discord server where all of his products are talked about. There's a suggestions channel specifically for GATE, and he makes a point to reply to every comment on the suggestions page, whether or not it's one he'll implement or doesn't see happening anytime soon. Finally, I really appreciate how simple the tool is. It's just. like. a table... You log in and you see only what has been set up. The only thing that's extra is a very small button in the bottom left where you can access all the SRD 5E spells and monsters. This is useful for the DM to look up something really quick, but personally I don't even use that. However, it's out of the way and it could be useful for players.
******The Bad******
• Clunky UI
• Unknown load progress
• No steam connect
• Plain drawing tool
GATE is relatively new, and it's still undergoing active development, so the UI can be a little rough at times. It can hang up every now and then when you're trying to do something or load something large; You have no idea whether or not it's about to crash or it's just loading slowly in the background. Not all the menus are incredibly easy to navigate, especially the one in the top right that controls tokens and the map itself. I wish the game had "steam connect," so my friends could join just by clicking on my account and "join game" rather than having to open navigate through the other servers to find mine. It's a small issue, and realistically only a pet peeve, But the implementation of that would seriously improve the user experience in my opinion. Finally, one of the core principles of a tabletop map is drawing on the map. When you load in a pre-generated image, and your player does something, you need to signify it so it's easy for everybody else to see. Unfortunately, the drawing tool is very lackluster. It doesn't have any shapes, and you can't erase portions of lines at a time. I understand that erasing a whole line can be useful, but maybe the option to only erase segments of it instead of the whole line would be better. Shapes are really big though, so many cast of fireball and you want to see who it hits, you have to use. The measure tool and hold it around in the circle which is impossible to do by hand. If you could draw a circle from a point and then use that circle to show the other players where the fireball is -- because they can't see your measurement tool -- then there's no question over who is in the radius. That's just one example of a useful shape, squares and cones and triangles and hexagons are also super useful. I also wish we could snap to the grid when drawing, that's huge.
******Conclusion******
Despite my pros and cons, I still love this tool. It is by far the best SIMPLE virtual tabletop that I have found. If you're looking for something with all those extra whizbangs and shishkabobs that other VTTs are really good at, then this simply isn't for you. But if you're looking for something that is simple, easy to use, inexpensive, user-friendly, and makes nothing more than a table top, then this is the tool for you. Development is still going on, and I can see many of the improvements being implemented that I've already written about. Hopefully they are. I don't have any plans on editing this, because this review took me about an hour to type out 😅, so if they are let me know in the comments. 😘
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know in the comments.
Enjoy,
//SIGNED//
Sahlonahl
