Resources

Tabletop Game and Design Resources

What follows is a list of tools that may prove useful or relevant in our workshop. They provide examples of tools used by tabletop game designers and players. Note that no technical expertise is required in any of these tools to participate in this workshop, although experience with them may prove useful for some of the groups.

• Tabletop Simulator
  • Popular commercial software for playing tabletop games remotely online.
  • $20, but also has a 4-pack of licenses for $60.
  • By default,only comes with a set of assets common across games or for games in the public domain (playing cards, chess pieces, various sizes of dice, etc.).
  • A community of modders have created scripted versions of various popular board games (such as Settlers of Catan).
  • Tabletop Simulator Tutorial YouTube Playlist (by Bob De Schutter)
• Tabletopia
  • An alternative to Tabletop Simulator.
  • Free
  • Available as a desktop client, but is also playable in web browser.
• Roll20.net
  • In-browser tabletop platform primarily used for Tabletop Roleplaying & Wargaming games
  • Free, with tiered optional subscriptions (Plus @ $50/year, Pro @ $100/year)
• Board Game Design Lab Tools & Resources
  • Note that these are targeted towards the design of tabletop games more generally rather than for online / virtual play.

Relevant Work from Organizers and Invited Guests

• Kessner, T., Gee, E., & Pérez-Cortés, L. (2020). Wicked Play: Wicked Problems, Designerly Citizens, Design Games. In Gresalfi, M. and Horn, I. S. (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020, Volume 2 (pp. 1118-1124). Nashville, Tennessee: International Society of the Learning Sciences.