The Living Table
tabletop
The Living Table is a browser-native fantasy tabletop built to feel like a physical board game rather than a video game. Two players field cardboard-style counters — knights, archers, wizards, goblins, orcs, trolls, dragons — across a hex map rendered in warm 3D, with a real-looking table, dice, and player trays standing in for the components of a classic hex-and-counter strategy game.
Playing it feels tactile: you pick up a counter and it lifts slightly off the board, drag it across the hexes, and it snaps into place when you let go. Dice tumble and settle rather than just displaying a number, pieces cast small shadows, and the game plays a soundtrack of battle noise — dice rolls, sword hits and misses, defeats, and a victory fanfare — as the fight unfolds. The camera pans, zooms, and rotates around the board the way you would lean over a real table to get a better look.
You can play locally against another person on the same screen, against the built-in computer opponent, or online in a shared room with a friend — and because the whole game runs on a seeded, deterministic rules engine, AI agents can take a seat and play a full side too. Every finished battle is recorded and can be watched back afterward, move by move, with a ledger narrating each roll and defeat.
Rules
Two players maneuver cardboard armies across a fantasy hex map. Battles are decided by a six-sided die, and you win by taking the enemy castle or destroying their fielded army.
On your turn, any number of your units may act, each getting one move and one attack, in either order. Click a unit to see its reachable hexes glow, click a glowing hex to move there — plain and road hexes cost 1 movement point, forest and hill hexes cost 2 — and click a glowing enemy to attack. A unit that has already moved can still attack, and vice versa. When you are done, you press End Turn and the other side plays.
Combat is resolved with a single die roll: a 4 or better hits, but a defender standing on forest or hill needs a 5 or better. Each hit does 1 point of damage. Most units have 2 hit points; the Troll, Dragon, and Man-at-Arms have 3; the Wolf has 1. A unit reduced to 0 hit points is destroyed. The dice are seeded, so a saved game replays identically every time.
Units carry their own stats and, in the full roster, special abilities: the Knight gets a bonus to hit after charging 3 or more hexes, the Archer can attack twice in a turn if it stays still, the Wizard's attacks ignore terrain defense, the Troll heals itself at the start of its turn, and so on. Each side also has a General — if it dies, the whole army fights at a penalty. Players can additionally draw and play cards from a ten-card Tactic Deck, one per turn, for effects like rerolling a failed attack, giving a unit extra movement, or shrugging off the next hit.
Screenshots
