Tabletop Playground News

Over the past month we've been focused on a lot of quality of life features and improvements to Tabletop Playground. Check out all the details for the changes and new elements we've added over the past month below and if there are any specific features you'd like to see in Tabletop Playground, join our growing Discord community and let us know! You can also find our full change-logs on our Discord server too.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/838410/Tabletop_Playground/

[h2]Recent Development Updates[/h2]
Card stack and container explorer window - A new UI window allows you to view and reorder the contents of card stacks and container objects. You can also drag cards or other objects directly from the window onto the table.



You can now view and reorder the contents of card stacks.

Permissions - The session options now allow you to set various permissions like creating or deleting objects, or using card stack explorer.

Container object scripting - Container objects now have a custom class in the API, allowing you to check and modify their contents. A new method GameObject.getContainer can be used to check if an object is in a container and retrieve it. onInserted and onRemoved events allow scripts to react when items enter or leave the container.

Card names - Cards can now have individual names. You can set the card names in the editor, they are shown on tooltips for single cards and on the tooltips in the new card stack explorer. The card names are also accessible by scripting: the CardDetails class now has a name attribute.

Configurable zoom view direction - The direction from which an object is viewed with the object zoom can now be specified in the editor. If no direction is set, the object spins at an angle while zoomed. This is especially useful when using multistate objects to display multiple pages of information (as for rulebooks): simply specify (0,0,1) as viewing direction, and your book can be read comfortably while zoomed!

Bug reporter - You can now report bugs (or suggestions) directly from the game and the editor! There's a "Report Bug" entry in the context menu, and a small bug button in the lower right when editing an object.

[h2]March Creator Competition Winners[/h2]
This is the third month of our series of creator competitions and we've continued to see fantastic games and tools created and uploaded to mod.io part of our closed beta Creator's Program. I'm sure all our creators are excited to see the winners, so let's jump into it!

Join the Creator's Program 🎲

Covington90's original virus themed game 'Epidemic' in action in Tabletop Playground.

Our first winner is Covington90, for their own (very on topic) virus related game Epidemic. It has already been in development in physical form for two years, before it was recreated in Tabletop Playground, and the results are terrific to say the least. Although still in early stages, we can see the potential in Covington's game already, and would encourage everyone to give it a shot and provide feedback for them on mod.io!

While Langraff has been doing their fair share and representing the Russian board game community, with nearly a dozen games uploaded! It's a broad range of games and genres that they've shared and at an impressive rate, not just in March but over the last couple of months.

Each of our winners will be receiving a code for the final release of Tabletop Playground, so they can continue to create incredible games and tools following the game's release! We'll be continuing to run these competitions in the lead up to the game's launch, so join our Discord, sign up for the Creator's Program and start creating, and you could win a code for yourself!

Remember to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, IndieDB, Steam and Itch.io to be the first to know when Tabletop Playground will be releasing. Until next time Meeples, we hope all your games are good ones!

Welcome to our latest development update for Tabletop Playground, spotlighting the latest features we've added to the game. Our last few announcements have been focused on our publishing partnership with Modularity Games and our monthly community competitions, so we wanted to bring the focus back to all the work we've been doing on the game!

Check out all the big features we've added over the last couple of months below and if there are any specific features you'd like to see in Tabletop Playground, join our growing Discord community and let us know!

Wishlist Tabletop Playground

https://store.steampowered.com/app/838410/Tabletop_Playground/



The instant editor is one of the latest features we've added to Tabletop Playground.

Instant editor - You can now instantly switch to editing an object template while creating a game state for your package: right click on an object and choose "Edit template". The editor will be launched immediately, without leaving the table!

Updated editor camera controls - The editor camera has been updated to feel more like the in-game camera. It now also supports switching to first person mode and moving around using the keyboard.

Editor grid - You can now activate a grid while editing objects. The grid shows where Z is 0 and has a color mark where X and Y are also 0. It automatically scales with distance and shows either millimetre, centimetre, decimetre, or meter.

Duplicate buttons in editor - In all "- + < >" button rows in the editor (models, cards, etc.), a new button has been added that duplicates the currently selected element. The design of the buttons has also been improved.

Stack selected cards - You can now quickly create stacks from your selected cards using the context menu or a new keybind (Default Ctrl + G).



Object grouping and formations is a feature we've been excited about adding since starting development on the game!

Object grouping and formations - Objects can now be grouped (and un-grouped) from the context menu. Grouped objects always get picked up together. You can use this feature to create formations that you want to move as a whole. Object groups are replicated for all players and saved in game states.

Multi-state object scripting - Multi-state objects now have a custom class in the API, allowing you to set or retrieve their state and react to state changes.

New session option: Always Snap - When active, objects that are released (and not thrown) always "snap" with a quick animation, instead of falling physically. When Locked Physics is also active, dropped objects are immediately locked.

New session option: Lift over objects - When active, held objects are lifted above other objects so they don't collide. This option is now on by default, which means that the default behaviour is now different. Turn it off if you want held objects to collide with other physical objects on the table.



Dropping stacks of cards into holders in action.

Allow dropping stacks of cards on card holders - You can now not only drop single cards, but also stacks of cards on card holders (as long as there's still space on the holder for the whole stack). The card stack will be fanned out into single cards.

Optional 2D style cursor highlighting - A new option in the interface settings allows you to switch the cursor to 2D highlighting, which will make it feel more like a classic on-screen cursor. The difference is subtle: Instead of highlighting objects above the cursor in 3D space, objects between the cursor and the camera are highlighted. And when picking up a single object, it will not be centered on the cursor but remain at the current offset (similar to what happens when you pick up a group of objects).

Dice for scripting - Dice are now represented as their own Dice object. You can find or change their current face, get the names of faces as defined in the editor, and roll them. There's also a new global event hook onDiceRolled that gets called whenever a player has rolled dice.

mod.io status window - The main menu now shows an info window for mod.io. You can see the connections status and pending downloads with progress. There's also buttons to open the mod.io page and refresh current downloads.



Dice can now be represented as their own 'dice' object, which makes scripting them all the easier!

These are just some of the major features we've added and changes we have made to Tabletop Playground throughout 2020 so far. We did an update focused on community requests at the start of this year and have an extensive change-log we could include here, but it'd be insanely long!

You can check out and keep up to date with all the latest TP updates on our Discord server, where we share the change-log for every new update we push! By joining our Discord you'll be able to sign up to our closed beta Creator's Program and start testing out and creating content for the game right now, so don't hesitate joining our growing community.

As always, to be the first to know exactly when Tabletop Playground will be releasing in Q2 this year, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, IndieDB, Steam, Itch.io and sign up to our newsletter. Until next time Meeples, we hope all your games are good ones!

In the build up to the release of Tabletop Playground (in Q2 2020) we started the closed beta Creator’s Program late last year, inviting modders, board game creators and passionate fans to test out the latest builds of the game and to start creating games and tools before release.

We’ve been ecstatic at the number of games we’ve seen created and uploaded to mod.io (the solution we’re using for cross platform mod support) already and decided to start running monthly competitions to reward talented and hard working members of our growing community. Check out the winners for February below and a recap of our winners from January too!

Join the Creator’s Program 🎲

We saw a diverse range of games and tools created throughout February and wanted to therefore highlight 3 different creators, who each brought something unique and brilliant to the table.



Firstly DashXero, for their gorgeous original tactical fighting card game ‘Girls with Icky Things‘. Although it’s only in pre-alpha at this stage and requires further testing, it’s already showing plenty of potential and showcases TP’s visual potential. They even built a full custom table for the game to be played on too!

The second highlights Duranu, one of the most active and productive members of our community who posted several great packages for a couple of games throughout February. Their work demonstrates the ease and tremendous speed at which games can be developed and implemented into Tabletop Playground.



Finally, the third prize goes to Salami, another highly active member of our growing community for their work on the tool ‘Simple Buttons for TP‘. JavaScript scripting is a huge feature for Tabletop Playground, which will allow creators to build games with complex rules and systems, to ensure games are all the more streamlined and fun. Salami’s work is a great example of the potential of scripting and is one of the most complex scripting tools we’ve seen so far.

Each winner will receive a code for the final release of Tabletop Playground, so they can continue to create incredible games and tools following the game’s release. Speaking of which, if you’re interested in signing up for the closed beta to start creating games for Tabletop Playground before its release and go in the running for the next set of prizes, join our Discord community now to enter!

We wanted to quickly mention the winners for January and our first monthly creator’s competition too. Firstly to CrazyVulcan, who uploaded the first full original game to mod.io as part of the Creator’s Program with ‘Here’s The Deal‘. While we gave out a second prize to Morty, for their incredible efforts at uploading an impressive amount of packages for several different games in one month. Including the first package to make use of the scripting functionality!



Congrats to all our winners from February and January! We’re excited to see what our community creates in March, how you continue to push our in-game tools to new levels and to see who will be our next set of winners 🏅

As always, to be the first to know exactly when Tabletop Playground will be releasing in Q2 this year, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, IndieDB, Steam, join our Discord and sign up to our newsletter. Until next time Meeples, we hope all your games are good ones!

Today we’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with Modularity Games, the game publisher from the creators of the long running online community sites ModDB/IndieDB, who are going to be publishing Tabletop Playground!

For much of TP’s development it’s been mostly myself not only creating the game, but promoting it too, which takes a lot of time and effort as I’m sure you can imagine. So planning ahead, last year I did research into possible publishers to work with and once I came across Modularity Games, I knew they were the perfect fit for Tabletop Playground.

The team behind Modularity Games has a long history with mods and since modding is such a core part of Tabletop Playground, Modularity Games instantly understood the game’s potential and have the knowledge and expertise to help it succeed.

What does this mean going forward? You probably won’t see a huge amount of change, except you’ll see the Modularity Games team across our various channels such as on social media and in our Discord, sharing important info and announcements in the lead up to the release. But they’ll be largely focused on marketing the game, growing out community and helping with the nitty-gritty elements of publishing a game, so I’ll have more time to focus on the actual development side of things!

Which ultimately means, a better game overall for you when it releases later this year. Which by the way, is going to be in Q2 of 2020!

Object grouping is one of the most recent additions coming to Tabletop Playground!

On that note, development on Tabletop Playground continues to go smoothly, with dozens of updates and fixes implemented since the start of this year already and more to come on our roadmap, including updates to the editor, UI and scripting API, new features to improve the overall gameplay experience, and plenty more!

Can’t wait to get your hands on Tabletop Playground to start creating games and testing out these upcoming features before the game releases? Then join our growing Discord community and sign up for our exclusive early access Creator’s Program right now. By doing so you’ll have the opportunity to help shape the game and have a chance to to win a full release copy of the game as part of our monthly creator competitions!

We’ve already seen dozens of creations as part of the early access Creator’s Program (Communopoly credit thetitan81)

It’s been an exciting ride so far and it’s only looking better as each day passes as we get closer to the release of Tabletop Playground. We’re excited to be collaborating with Modularity Games, to see our passionate and talented community continue to grow and with your help, create the ultimate digital tabletop game.

To be the first to know when Tabletop Playground will be releasing in Q2 this year, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, IndieDB, join our Discord, sign up to our newsletter, and don't forget to wishlist on Steam! Until next time Meeples, we hope all your games are good!

Happy new year everyone! We’ve recently released a couple of new updates for Tabletop Playground for users in our early access Creator’s Program (learn more on our FAQ!), which are focused on the community: all changes are addressing suggestions and bug reports from our Discord.

It’s quite a long list, but before you read on if you love tabletop gaming, don’t forget to follow and wishlist us! If you want to start creating game before Tabletop Playground releases, you can join the Creators Program!

Search/filter box for objects and packages



Wherever you can select a package or an object in the UI, there’s now a search box. Type in any part of the name to filter the object or package list.

Coordinates window



Add “Coordinates” window in object context menu that allows editing position and rotation as well as absolute and relative scale. Remove scale from object properties window.

Snap points for scripting



Snap points are now available for scripting! There’s a new class SnapPoint, methods to retrieve snap points in GameObject, and a new event that is called when an object gets snapped when a player releases it.

Scripting math classes update

The scripting math classes Vector, Rotator, and Color now behave array-like: their members can be accessed as index, they are iterateble, have a length, and arrays can be passed to functions that expect these classes. The constructors now take values to initialise the object. The existing properties remain mostly the same, with the following exceptions:

• The length methods from vector have been renamed to magnitude to avoid a name clash with the standard length property.

• The static make methods have been removed, the standard constructor now fulfils their purpose. Here’s some examples how the classes can now be used:

v = new Vector (1, 2, 3)
r = new Rotator (...v)
object.setPosition ([1,2,3])
object.setRotation ({yaw:30})
c = new Color (v[0], v[1], v.z, r.pitch)

Find the full change-log in the blog post and keep an eye out as we’ve got some big updates on the horizon for Tabletop Playground, with some exciting features set to be added in the near future. You can join our Discord and take part in our Creator’s Program to start testing them out as they are released and start creating games to be shared on mod.io right now.

As always, remember to wishlist Tabletop Playground and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and IndieDB to be the first to know about new updates, and when it’ll launch in 2020.