Shameless plug: I created a free 2d web based tabletop app at https://screentop.gg that lets you put together a multiplayer board game without any coding.
I spoke to the guy behind boardgame.io a few months ago. Awesome engine but it's more geared towards building out the rules / mechanics of a specific game vs a sandbox approach.
Are you prepared for the incoming wave of DMCA takedown requests if this proves to be popular?
I don't expect this to actually happen but if it does, I would comply.
If someone spends the time to create content for this platform, how can they be sure that it won't shut down next week?
This currently runs on just one server and even with the incoming HN traffic, the server utilization is pretty low. This won't cost much to keep running.
Can players create private content, such as for a D&D
campaign?
Authors can create private games. This means only they are allowed to create a room. Rooms themselves are only semi private (the 4 digit code is guessable) and will expire after a period of inactivity. Not sure if the current setup would work for private D&D sessions but would love to support that use case.
If a player starts using content created by someone else, and it gets taken down for either copyright or because the author removed it, can that player continue to use that content?
If the game itself is deleted, all rooms of it are also deleted.
In fact, can an author remove content at all?
Yes, authors can delete their own games.
Is there a system in place where the legitimate owner of an IP can create content for this platform and monetize it in some way? Tabletop Simulator may be a den of piracy[0] but there are some games for sale there as well: https://www.tabletopsimulator.com/games*
At this stage I expect most games to be from hobbyists who want others to playtest their games or kickstarter creators who want to offer a digital game copy to backers. Would be open to creating opportunities for monetization if this gets more traction.
I would take them down - though my understanding is that a lot of publishers actually want a digital version of their games available as a way to promote physical sales. So I would love to work with publishers to put official games on Screentop.
The game state is a json schema object and user actions (roll dice, shuffle container, move component, etc) are json patches that update this state.
I want scripting to allow specific mechanics that would be more tedious to perform manually. For example: Draw N cards based on the value of a dice roll. Or to potentially move a turn token around from one player to the next after an action is performed. Haven't though too deeply about implementation yet though.
The main difference is that Screentop runs in a web browser. To start a group play session, you can just send someone a URL and there's no need for everyone to purchase / install / setup TTS.
Yeah I built this because it's painful to coordinate playing tabletop games online - with Tabletop Simulator or individual apps it's time consuming to get everyone to purchase/install/setup a copy just to get started.
Hopefully one day publishers will put some of those games up on Screentop!
Screentop is a tabletop sandbox that supports cards, dice, boards, counters, and hidden player state. In the future I'd like to add scripting support so that more complex game mechanics and rules can be implemented.
Client stack: Typescript, React, Apollo, and a custom react-reconciler renderer that targets canvas
Server stack: Elixir, Phoenix, Absinthe
Happy to answer any questions and would love your feedback! Also I have two asks for HN:
1) Content - if you know any designers or publishers that would be interested in creating digital versions of their games please direct them my way!
2) Individual(s) to team up with - this is a solo side project right now but I'm interested in working with others, technical or non-technical, to see where this goes.