Top of the Table
Small games,
played properly.
Every game here runs on one engine — the rules are data, not code — so each of them plays in your browser against the computer, and prints onto paper you can put on an actual table.
- 12games
- Oneengine
- Freeto play here
Ours
Written here, and not like anything else.
Underkeep
A dungeon of cards. Spend a pace to walk north, turn over what is there, and come out of it as somebody else.
A dungeon crawl where the map is a deck and moving costs a card. Closest to an old first-person dungeon crawler, played on a table.
Solo to 4Board gameDeeper
Descend into sixteen chambers, cut down what guards them, and get out richer. Co-operative: everyone wins or nobody does.
A co-operative dungeon crawl. The party goes in together, and either everybody gets out rich or nobody does.
Solo to 4Board gameWayfarer
A solo roleplaying quest. Choose who you are, cross the Ember Road before the light goes, and bring back what is under the Barrow.
A roleplaying game for one, on a map, with a die. You pick a character, the road decides what you meet, and what it does to you stays on the table where you can see it.
SoloBoard gameBaize
Take a ball on and you stay at the table; miss and you sit down. The higher the ball the more it pays and the less likely it is, and every one you put down makes the next harder.
If you have ever watched pool or snooker: you keep shooting while you keep potting, the awkward balls are worth more, and playing safe is a real move rather than a cop-out.
2 playersTable gameCrossings
Lay a square onto the map where its edges agree with what is already there. You are paid for the roads on it and again for the road you joined, and the bag is what ends it.
If you have laid tiles to build a landscape before, this is that: a piece fits where its edges agree, and the best pieces are the hardest to place.
2–4 playersBoard gameWordwright
Lay letters from your rack and claim what you have made. Longer words pay more, the rare letters pay most, and nothing in the box decides whether it is a word — the table does.
A word game with tiles, judged by the people playing rather than by a list in the box — which is closer to how anybody actually plays one.
2–4 playersCard gameThe Last Word
Play a card and it does not simply happen — the player on your left may spend one of their own to stop it, and you may stop them stopping you. It resolves backwards, last answer first.
If you have played anything with a counterspell, a block or a nope card, this is that mechanic on its own — and you can be countered back.
2–4 playersCard gameShort Supply
Everybody earns the same thing and needs the other. Offer somebody a deal they can turn down, or pay the bank’s worse rate, and be first to stock what you need.
The trading half of a settlement game without the settlements: everybody needs what somebody else is sitting on, and the bank is always the worse deal.
2–4 playersCard game
The old ones
Traditional games, centuries out of copyright, implemented from scratch.
Crazy Eights
Shed your hand by matching the suit or rank of the upcard. Eights are wild and let you name the suit.
The card game every modern shedding game was built from. Match the suit or the rank, play a wild eight to change it, first to empty their hand wins.
2–6 playersCard gameWhist
Four players in two partnerships. Follow suit if you can, take tricks, and the side that takes seven of thirteen wins.
If you have played spades or hearts, you know this — they all descend from it. Trumps, follow suit, take tricks with your partner.
4 playersCard gameKlondike Solitaire
The classic single-player patience game. Build four foundations from ace to king, using seven tableau piles of descending, alternating-colour runs.
This is Solitaire — the one that has come free with every computer you have owned. Klondike is its proper name.
SoloCard gameBaccarat
Two hands are dealt by rules nobody may bend, and you bet on which will come closer to nine. The fastest game in the house, and the one with the least to decide.
If you have watched anyone play it in a film, you have seen all of it — two hands, closest to nine, and the only thing you do is choose a side before the cards are turned.
Solo to 6Card game