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

Author here.<p>Screentop is a tabletop sandbox that supports cards, dice, boards, counters, and hidden player state. In the future I&#x27;d like to add scripting support so that more complex game mechanics and rules can be implemented.<p>Client stack: Typescript, React, Apollo, and a custom react-reconciler renderer that targets canvas<p>Server stack: Elixir, Phoenix, Absinthe<p>Happy to answer any questions and would love your feedback! Also I have two asks for HN:<p>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!<p>2) Individual(s) to team up with - this is a solo side project right now but I&#x27;m interested in working with others, technical or non-technical, to see where this goes.<p>Discord: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;discordapp.com&#x2F;invite&#x2F;wva8ebh" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;discordapp.com&#x2F;invite&#x2F;wva8ebh</a> Email: david@screentop.gg

I would also like to see a screenshot&#x2F;video gallery to get a feel for this platform, but I think you&#x27;ve probably gotten the message by now. Instead I&#x27;ll throw a couple more questions your way:<p>Are you prepared for the incoming wave of DMCA takedown requests if this proves to be popular?<p>If someone spends the time to create content for this platform, how can they be sure that it won&#x27;t shut down next week?<p>Can players create private content, such as for a D&amp;D campaign?<p>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?<p>In fact, can an author remove content at all?<p>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: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tabletopsimulator.com&#x2F;games" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tabletopsimulator.com&#x2F;games</a><p>[0]: Ignoring that some number of users own the physical game and are merely playing with friends who are not in the area. Legally it might be piracy (IANAL), but ethically there&#x27;s some discussion to be had there.

You didn&#x27;t ask but, consider making a &quot;highlight reel&quot; or screenshots and showcasing them on your page, otherwise I don&#x27;t really understand what this is or what it looks like. Is it like Tabletop Simulator?

I couldn&#x27;t tell if this was different to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamearena.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamearena.com&#x2F;</a>. But that site does license the games it uses.

I&#x27;ll have to dig deeper into the creation mechanic but this would fill a need that I&#x27;ve got to recreate table-top games but for distributed groups of friends that haven&#x27;t been able to devote the same amount of time as before to gaming.<p>We&#x27;ve been trying to work through Risk: Legacy, Pandemic, or other, longer-run games (I would think Axis &amp; Allies and other longer-run strategy games as good candidates for this thing) in-person for years and it&#x27;s hard to find the time.<p>It&#x27;d be awesome to be able to continue things on a platform like this, but would obviously necessitate creating a version of the game on the platform first. I like the concept!

I wish there were an open source, well defined DSL for how to describe board games. I suppose there is for things like chess, and custom games... Anyone know of such a language which aims to describe <i>any</i> such game?

I found this platform really easy to play around with when building a game. I put together a version of Hanabi, and the system was flexible enough to let me make player hands that are visible to everyone _except_ the player. Reconstructing this relatively simple game from scratch only took ~3h, and that is everything from finding royalty-free assets to writing the manual.

Here is also a tutorial app for board games - Dizie tries to make board games more approachable by giving them similar tutorials as in video games.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dized.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dized.com&#x2F;</a>

Another well know platform: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yucata.de&#x2F;en" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yucata.de&#x2F;en</a><p>Also you can shop digital version of board games like Terraforming Mars in Steam.

At least one of these games is using copyright of uncertain provenance... have you really purchased the rights to &quot;Code Geass&quot;?

This is really cool, and I like this space. I&#x27;m currently looking at starting a company around implementing board games online.

Question: What&#x27;s the difference between this and Tabletop Simulator?