A simple but innovative concept that delivers thanks to dedicated and continued effort and improvement, Tabletop Simulator is the first mainstream product to explore an unique class of customizable simulation in the field of board games. From a basic setup with a floating table and a background, it provides a physics engine capable of simulating intermediate to advanced tabletop dynamics - from solitaire card games to complex RPGs with hundreds of elements. With a lobby system, up to eight players can play virtually any board game imaginable (unless it involves needlessly complex physics or requires unsurmountable space) in multiplayer across the internet.

Tabletop Simulator thrives on one simple concept: To provide the tools necessary for people to be in control of whatever combination of objects that make up the game they want to play, in any way they so desire. The game has no "AI" in the traditional sense, in fact it has no rules or scripting at all. It is a large sandbox that allows you to spawn a table and a background as a foundation for a room, then populate it with you-name-it: Smaller boards for traditional games such as chess, a larger one for hour-long social games, a wide array of pieces, blocks, figurines, dice, markers, the list goes on and on. You can add custom objects easily: Custom 2D pictures can be directly incorporated as game objects on flat templates such as card backs and card holder cards, while more advanced designs allow you to incorporate any three-dimensional object you could possibly make.
With later updates, you can now also add custom tables (limited) and backgrounds.

Once the objects have been spawned into the world, you can interact with them in a variety of useful ways: For card games, an entire subsystem allowing decks to be shuffled, searched, dealt from and kept hidden in pre-placed player zones enables you to perform most standard actions with a breeze. All objects can be grabbed and moved, locked temporarily or permanently in place in any position on the ground or air, raised and lowered, flipped, rotated along every possible axis, thrown or flicked, joined together etc. A variety of miscellaneous actions help with clarification such as an arrow that each player can spawn at their cursor to make sure players are looking at the same thing, a ruler for measuring in-game distances at will, and so on. Hosts and promoted players can easily spawn, duplicate (by Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V none the less) and delete objects at will. And while the signature option to 'Flip The Table' is always present, it never takes longer than a simple Undo to return the entire room to its state a few seconds ago.

Apart from simply interacting with objects, the world itself, as well as any individual object, can be manipulated in gravity, looks, material, opacity and other behaviour - to be experienced for yourself as the variables to be changed here are very limitless.

The game world - that includes all progress - can be saved at any time, and a load will automatically restore everything just the way you left it. Aside from making long complicated games a breeze to pick up at a later time (hugely beneficial compared to many real-life board games) this is also the main (and only) way you can publish your creations at the Steam Workshop - you simply save everything you want in one file that is then published as a game mode - including all custom objects you include with it, in exactly the position you left every item, down to their names and physics settings.

Every single object or collection of objects - custom or not - can be saved separately as well. These go to a player's custom 'Chest' inventory, which is account bound. If the player has host permissions, he can spawn any object saved here (in addition to all the objects included with the base game, obviously) to the shared world. By storing frequently-used objects in chests, you can spawn them in any world and make your own hilarious crossover modes, custom player figurines or whatever, only limited by your creativity. This is also a much faster way of accessing certain objects you need rather than having to open a new mode entirely, which both resets everything and usually takes some time to load.
With a recent update, Tabletop Simulator now supports loading partial objects from gamemodes, and many experienced Workshop authors now store load-heavy objects (such as card decks) in the bags that are included with the base game so that they can be loaded on a per-use basis after the world itself has finished loading. Speaking of which, the game also provides a old-school (alarm) clock that beeps when you tap it (for time-keeping), recently an object-based Notepad for scattered variable-keeping (in addition to the external Notepad from Early Access), a simulated tablet(!) that can access webpages and e.g. provide you with custom music from YouTube or whatever.

Developer Updates and Steam Workshop
I've moved this section to the comments since I apparently reached some character limit for reviews (WTF). Please read it there.

There is no story. Period. It's a simulator and it does what a simulator should. Still a better story than Twilight many less serious simulators are awkwardly trying to tell.

The base tables and backgrounds are assets that serve mostly as foundation, and are not especially aesthetically appealing. However, your focus should be on the board itself, on which every object is as lifelike as you make them. All items from the base game are perfectly modelled and the Workshop provides loads of custom additions, good and bad alike. The game does suffer from performance issues thanks to its very realistic handling of each individual object, but this is negligible in all but the largest scenarios.

The objects have very smooth and lifelike sounds when connecting with each other or the board, reflecting their size, type and material which is of course also customizable to an extent.
There is no music. You can incorporate some with the Tablet object if you so desire. They added a fancy opening cutscene when you start the game but it feels awkward.

Tabletop Simulator is the overall go-to solution if you want to play any imaginable board game (with very few exceptions) with friends over the internet, in a perfect environment with full control over everything and several benefits compared to the real-life alternative. It is best suited for card games and traditional style turn-based board games, though it also supports lesser physics-based games quite well. You have to handle all the details yourself (just as you would in real life) as there is no script support. You'll have to pay for the simulator, but then you get to immerse yourself in a world of almost endless entertainment whenever you feel like it (and can convince some friends to join you).


Gameplay: 9/10
Story: N/A
Graphics: 8/10
Media: N/A

Overall: 9/10