Have You Played... Tabletop Simulator?

The first thing you need to know about Tabletop Simulator is that it isn't goofy physics nonsense, in the vein of goat or bread. It's an earnest attempt to let you play board games over the internet, recreating each component rather than translating games into a digital interface.

The second thing you need to know is that, for the most part, it works.

It's been years since I last simulated a table, but there was a time when me and my friends would gather round one every week. I can't for the life of me remember what we played, apart from when one of them painstakingly remade Cosmic Encounter. He did this a few months before the developers added it as official DLC, then tragically deleted his illegal home-brewed version from the Steam Workshop.

Fortunately, the Workshop has been enriched with other creations over the years - not all of them board games. Look, just a couple of months back someone made a neat Cyberpunk city. And someone else has remade that mat everyone had. People taking creative tools in unexpected directions is one of the best things about videogames.

I also like how you get an achievement if you play for an hour without flipping the table. There is a bit of goofy physics nonsense.