davidye

Joined 16 years ago

Karma

101

Submissions

Member since

May 6

View on Hacker News

Recent submissions

Comment · 5 years ago

Shameless plug - but give https://screentop.gg a try! Studios and kickstarters are already using it to develop and play deck building games.

Comment · 6 years ago

Shameless plug: I created a free 2d web based tabletop app at https://screentop.gg that lets you put together a multiplayer board game without any coding.

Comment · 6 years ago

I do plan to! But solo dev with a back log of features so I can't give a concrete ETA.

Comment · 6 years ago

This is web based and free to use. No need for everyone to purchase and install a copy - just send a link and start playing.

Another major difference is that this is 2D, which should work for most tabletop games but not all.

Comment · 6 years ago

I spoke to the guy behind boardgame.io a few months ago. Awesome engine but it's more geared towards building out the rules / mechanics of a specific game vs a sandbox approach.

Comment · 6 years ago

Mobile is not currently supported.

Comment · 6 years ago

Yeah I need to clean up the marketing a bit!

For now try it out by clicking the Play button on one of the games such as: https://screentop.gg/@BrotherMingGames/code-geass

Also just posted a few screenshots on the product hunt page which may help clarify: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/screentop-gg

Comment · 6 years ago

Thanks for the questions!

Are you prepared for the incoming wave of DMCA takedown requests if this proves to be popular?

I don't expect this to actually happen but if it does, I would comply.

If someone spends the time to create content for this platform, how can they be sure that it won't shut down next week?

This currently runs on just one server and even with the incoming HN traffic, the server utilization is pretty low. This won't cost much to keep running.

Can players create private content, such as for a D&D campaign?

Authors can create private games. This means only they are allowed to create a room. Rooms themselves are only semi private (the 4 digit code is guessable) and will expire after a period of inactivity. Not sure if the current setup would work for private D&D sessions but would love to support that use case.

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?

If the game itself is deleted, all rooms of it are also deleted.

In fact, can an author remove content at all?

Yes, authors can delete their own games.

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: https://www.tabletopsimulator.com/games*

At this stage I expect most games to be from hobbyists who want others to playtest their games or kickstarter creators who want to offer a digital game copy to backers. Would be open to creating opportunities for monetization if this gets more traction.

Comment · 6 years ago

This only works on desktop right now but I do want to support other devices in the future.
Comment · 6 years ago

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.
Comment · 6 years ago

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.
Comment · 6 years ago

Excited to meet more people interested in this space - send me an email and let's chat!
Comment · 6 years ago

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.
Comment · 6 years ago

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.
Comment · 6 years ago

1) Game state is a json that is synced through websocket via Phoenix channels.
2) It doesn't currently enforce game mechanics like player turn.