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[shwaleti]

Maybe some of you remember me coming around here a few months ago asking a bunch of questions about board game tables and playing board games. Well I'm back with a prototype I've made. 

Here's a video



   It isn't a table but kinda of an extra platform for your games on your existing table. My prototype is about 14 inches square.  It rotates 360 degrees and extends about 12 inches so that each player can pull the board or whatever you may have on it closer to them and orientate it to their own needs.  It's elevated off the table leaving a bit more room below.  I suppose you could use it in the middle and put the main portion of the game on it or you could put it off to the side to place smaller peripheral pieces that can be pulled into and over the main parts if need be.

   This was made out of two lazy susan turnstiles, two drawer slides, some cardboard, and plywood.  These pieces of hardware aren't made for this kind of thing so it rocks a bit.   I think my next prototype will be a kind of articulated arm kind of like the way floor lamps can swing out and in. also I'm thinking about making the foot print a bit less maybe 12 inches (around the size of your average game box) and a littler shorter since there aren't many pieces that need 5 inches of clearance.

I've already play tested it with some friends and it turned out pretty good.  We played small world with the smaller map since there were three of us.  we could fit the map plus all the race/characteristic tokens on the board.  It was nice to pull the board right up to you and see everything at once, but it was a bit nerve racking spinning it with so many pieces.  I think this was mainly due to the construction of my model.  I think that having a different mechanism to move everything and some friction grease could help as well as a stickier surface to place everything would help.


Anyways, what does everyone think?  is this something you think would be useful?  would you buy something like this?

[pacovf]

I like the idea, but the first thought that came to mind (and that you also mentioned) was "Man, pieces are going to fly in all directions". If a player moves the platform a bit too forcibly towards him/herself, when s/he stops it the pieces will keep moving in the same direction, and just spread all over the place. Even if they don't actually leave the board, just moving around on top of it can wreck games with a lot of moving pieces. You want a platform with a lot of "inertia", as in, something that can't accelerate or decelerate too quickly.

Something else, it looked like the platform was trying to get to a given position during the last few seconds. I don't know if your platform was unbalanced, or only the table, but you probably want something that can stay stable while oriented in any direction.