Tabletop Simulator, digital prototypes, and online playtesting

A Virtual Tabletop

Tabletop Simulator is a virtual tabletop with working, realistic physics, which exists to facilitate tabletop gaming over the internet. There's a similar app called Tabletopia that is browser-based, while TTS is a $20 app on Steam.

People have created TTS "mods" of many tabletop games. Somebody even made a mod for Crusaders!

Unlike online portals such as BoardGameArena, Boiteajeux, and Yucata, Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator do not enforce the rules to these games. They are literally just a digital version of the game on a table, and players can move the pieces around however they want to. So to play a game on TTS, you need to know the rules.

I am not too familiar with any of these programs yet, but designers all over the world are turning to these or other online options in order to accomplish much-needed playtesting, since gathering in groups is ill advised these days (for future readers, we're talking about COVID-19 here, a worldwide pandemic that has people self-quarantining for the most part).

About a year ago I tried to make a TTS mod for my game Alter Ego, and while I got it set up, I did not know how to play it with anybody. By now, the game not only has pretty much finished art, but there have been significant rules and structural changes, so I really need to re-do that one before I can try to test it out. At the time, I was playtesting weekly, so the pressure to create online versions of my games was not there. For the last couple of months though, I have been able to make no progress whatsoever with my games, and that's just not going to work for me!

My Digital Prototypes

I currently have three digital prototypes that are ready to go:

* Apotheosis

I often feel uncomfortable trying to do something I'm not familiar with, and I've been really strapped for time lately anyway, so the first thing I tried was paying someone to make a TTS mod of Apotheosis. It was a snap for him to implement the game, and while the cost was more than I would have wanted to pay, I consider that it essentially included some TTS consultation, which has helped me gain the knowledge and confidence to try the next one on my own.

Once implemented, I was able to get online with my co-designer and my main playtester and give it a play. It worked! We spent some time familiarizing ourselves with the user interface, and fumbling with the components was more fiddly and took longer than simply grabbing things with our hands, but we were able to do the actual game in about 2 hours, and it went pretty well, all things considered!

One nice thing about a portal like this that doesn't enforce rules is that I can change the rules on the fly, or between games, and nothing has to be done with the prototype before playing again.

* Isle of Trains boardgame

Now that I had gained some familiarity with Tabletop Simulator, I thought I'd try my hand at inputting another prototype myself. I chose the Isle of Trains boardgame [side note: this needs a good title. I am fond of Isle of Trains: All Aboardgame, but it's a bit silly for a real title, and also that implies passenger trains, whereas this game is about freight trains], because I thought it'd be the simplest one to do. It wasn't too bad, and I had the whole thing ready to go in a couple of hours...

...until I realized that I did not have updated prototype files for the most recent changes after the last playtest.

Last night I spent another couple of hours updating some of those files and re-creating the TTS mod, and now it's just about ready to play. I haven't added uncoverable bonuses for building (like Crusaders has), which is something we might want to have, but the game is technically playable without that, and that would be pretty easy to add to the mod (once it exists).

* Automatown

I took on a co-designer for Automatown a few months go, and nether of us have had much time to focus on Automatown lately. However, Michael had done some work re-configuring the structure of the game, and I think he even got a test or two in before Stay At Home orders came into effect. Since then, he created a TTS mod of his new version of the game, and I'm ready to give it a try, as soon as I can carve out some time!