Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

screentop.gg

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#21

Post by mathgladiator »

davidye wrote: post #2

Author here. 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 f…

I'll be in touch, I'm currently building a new piece of infrastructure to support board-games. I almost have hearts working with full rules, and I want to explore some of the AI side of things.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#22

Post by davidye »

Evanbenn wrote: post #17

I couldn't tell if this was different to https://boardgamearena.com/ . But that site does license the games it uses.

The idea is similar but I wanted to build something a bit more modern than boardgamearea.

Focusing on adding more features and growing the site at the moment. Hope to license official games eventually.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#23

Post by davidye »

mathgladiator wrote: post #21
davidye wrote: post #2

Author here. 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 f…

I'll be in touch, I'm currently building a new piece of infrastructure to support board-games. I almost have hearts working with full rules, and I want to explore some of the AI side of things.

Excited to meet more people interested in this space - send me an email and let's chat!

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#24

Post by eerikkivistik »

davidye wrote: post #2

Author here. 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 f…

This is seriously dope, love it! If you are taking any suggestions for commercial games, then I would play the hell out of Imperial.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#25

Post by grawprog »

davidye wrote: post #2

Author here. 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 f…

This looks really awesome. I just commented today actually in the VR article how the tabletop simulator is about the only VR game that looks appealing just to get a group of people together to play a game like this, but I'd prefer something more quick and easy to pickup and play. This looks exactly like something I was thinking of.

A question though, how do you plan on dealing with the inevitable cease and desists as people create unofficial versions of their favourite proprietary games or even games using copyrighted properties?

As far as I know, some game companies...cough cough...wizards of the coast...cough cough...among others get kinda protective of these things.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#26

Post by davidye »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #14
davidye wrote: post #2

Author here. 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 f…

I really need a word for when I'm pissed someone beat me to an idea but delighted that it exists because of them. I'd really like to know more on how to specify a game for your platform. A scripting language is a good idea, but I'd like to see it limited in scope. You don't want your board games to just become video games. I never could figure out where exactly those limits should be.

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.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#27

Post by graydsl »

davidye wrote: post #22
Evanbenn wrote: post #17

I couldn't tell if this was different to https://boardgamearena.com/ . But that site does license the games it uses.

The idea is similar but I wanted to build something a bit more modern than boardgamearea. Focusing on adding more features and growing the site at the moment. Hope to license official games eventually.

I tried to build a game once with their stack, but it's just too old school and custom for my taste. I really appreciate your platform and hope it will attract some people.

The licensing thing is a big thing though. But I think the publishers don't mind as long as the games are well presented and don't have a digital version yet.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#28

Post by skrowl »

davidye wrote: post #19
andjd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi David, I'm a boardgame designer and a member of the NYC Playtest group. I don't personally do virtual prototypes, but of those who do, Tabletop Simulator is the one they all use. I'm curious what you see as the key differentiators between your app and Tabletop Simulator?

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.

This also makes it multiplatform. While (paid) TTS supports Windows, Linux and Mac, running on a web browser lets you play this (presumably) on an Android tablet, Chromebook, or iPad.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#29

Post by davidye »

grawprog wrote: post #25
davidye wrote: post #2

Author here. 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 f…

This looks really awesome. I just commented today actually in the VR article how the tabletop simulator is about the only VR game that looks appealing just to get a group of people together to play a game like this, but I'd prefer something more quick and easy to pickup and play. This looks exactly like something I was thinking of. A question though, how do you plan on dealing with the inevitable cease and desists as…

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.

Re: Show HN: Screentop.gg – a platform for tabletop games

#30

Post by davidye »

skrowl wrote: post #28
davidye wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This also makes it multiplatform. While (paid) TTS supports Windows, Linux and Mac, running on a web browser lets you play this (presumably) on an Android tablet, Chromebook, or iPad.

This only works on desktop right now but I do want to support other devices in the future.
Post reply on HN