''Tabletop Simulator'' is an independent video game that allows players to play and create

tabletop game Tabletop games or tabletops are games that are normally played on a Table (furniture), table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, Tabletop role-playing game, tabletop role-playing games, or ti ...

s in a multiplayer physics sandbox. Developed by Berserk Games as their first title after a successful

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

campaign in February 2014, the game was released in June of the following year.

Gameplay

''Tabletop Simulator'' is a player-driven physics sandbox, without set victory or failure conditions. After selecting a table to play on, players interact with the game by spawning and moving virtual pieces, which are subject to a physics simulation. Online multiplayer is supported with a maximum of ten players. Aside from spawning and moving pieces, the game includes mechanics to assist with common styles of board game play, such as automatic dice rolling and hiding players' pieces from one another; other mechanics aid in administrating a game, for example saving the state of the board or undoing moves. Several games are included, including chess, checkers and poker. Tables and pieces can be mixed and customized to create new games, which can then be saved to share and play with others. The game allows images and

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided int ...

to be imported to create entirely new pieces and tables, allowing for the recreation of most real-world board games. Over three-thousand games and custom assets are shared on the game's Steam Workshop; while there is original content, a notable number of these shared items are adaptations of existing games, including unlicensed derivatives of copyrighted works. Berserk Games has also worked with a number of game publishers to offer officially-licensed ''Tabletop Simulator'' versions of their games as downloadable content, such as '' Cosmic Encounter''.

Development

''Tabletop Simulator'' was developed by Berserk Games, a studio consisting of Jason Henry and Kimiko. Before forming Berserk Games, Henry attended college focusing on engineering, while working on game mods in his spare time, including the popular ''Mana Warfare'' mod for '' Chivalry: Medieval Warfare''. Kimiko had been a community moderator for ''Chivalry'' and later a member of Torn Banner Studios. In an interview with Gamasutra, the pair described the game ''Desperate Gods'' as being an inspiration, though they wanted to expand the "free-form shared board game" concept to cover ''all'' tabletop games. In a crowdfunding campaign that began in February 2014, ''Tabletop Simulator'' earned US$ on

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

with the backing of individuals. On March 15, Berserk Games announced that they had successfully passed through Steam Greenlight, allowing them to distribute the game on Steam.

January 2022 controversy

In January 2022, a

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

user was temporarily banned from the game's global chat for referring to herself as trans and gay. She then made a complaint to Berserk Games. On January 8, they responded with a statement that "Tabletop Simulator supports the LGBTQ+ community", then issued a formal apology to the user. On January 9, Berserk Games removed the global chat feature from the game. On January 14, Berserk Games made a $10000 donation to the National Center for Transgender Equality. Berserk Games's moderation decisions in this incident resulted in review bombing on their Steam page.

References

External links

* {{Grand strategy wargames 2015 video games Crowdfunded video games Kickstarter-funded video games Linux games Multiplayer and single-player video games Multiple-game video board games MacOS games Video games with Steam Workshop support Video games developed in the United States Windows games