Not sure if the community is interested in deal posts and digital implementations so why not try both?
The Steam Summer Sale is on and it includes a bunch of digital boardgame implementations. Unfortunately the "boardgame" and "tabletop" user tags are a bit polluted so have to wade through the noise. Here are some standouts I see (USD prices), please add yours in the comments.
Aeon's End - $1.94 $14.99
One Deck Dungeon $0.99 9.99
Scythe - $7.99 $17.99
Sentinels of the Multiverse $0.99 9.99
Spirit Island $12.48 24.99 (all time low I believe)
Tabletop Simulator - $9.99 $19.99
Wingspan $9.99 19.99
Note that some publishers do matching sales on mobile so for example One Deck Dungeon is on sale on Android too.
Over several iterations the Spirit Island app became good enough. However, as much as I love the game, it is immensely difficult to play in digital. Even when on my large monitor, I cannot show everything at the same time and I need to switch between maps and cards and I find it makes for much added difficulty. I have stopped playing the digital version. I have not played Scythe enough to be able to say anything about that app.
Thanks so much for sharing. I think spirit island is already complicated enough, might be really detrimental to try the digital version to see if I like the game.
One of the biggest pitfalls of Spirit Island is that the rulebook is a terrible teaching tool. The app is a significant improvement on that giving you a pretty indepth tutorial.
But if you can learn it in person or via TTS that's probably ideal.
there were some really decent TTS mods when I Last used TTS. in any case I highly recommend finding someone to teach you the game if you don’t know it already. I have more than once encountered people saying they didn’t enjoy the game only to change tune after getting a teacher. It is not even that the rulebooks are bad. It is just a lot of moving parts.