A Space to Play

I am not sure yet how much I will be talking through this one. Essentially, the more important thing is the number of pictures to peruse. But I want to give a bit of background and maybe point you in the direction of what it is we were doing. Or something…

Anyway, it all started around a year or so ago. I had been watching various videos on YouTube where other gamers had designed and built tables or table toppers for the games they play. I have a dining room table down in the basement that we use for gaming. This is a standard sized table, about 5 foot by 3 foot. It is essentially big enough to fit some average board games and we have used it for role playing games in the past as well. But, have you ever looked at something and thought it could be better?

the rough beginnings

Which brings me back to the different DIY videos I had been watching on YouTube. From the look of it, it wouldn’t be too big a deal to convert the dining room table into something a bit better designed for gaming. Nothing ever really goes like you plan.

It gets better from here

What went from a redesign on an old table actually became the idea of my son in law thinking he could create a table topper to cover the table and give it to me for Christmas. All well and good, but at one point I had figured it out that he had been planning it. Not that I was going to tell him I knew about the plan, I was more interested to see what he might be able to come up with.

Now you can imagine that if I know about it, then his dad, who has been a gaming friend for an incredibly long time (actually didn’t know who the boy’s dad was until after he had been dating my daughter for a bit, imagine the surprise of running into bigger connections, but not a story needed right now). Anyway, he wanted a piece of the action. He and I had been playing X Wing together as well as a couple other games. And we wanted something bigger than my current table for playing games like that.

The table had grown from something small my son in law was working on to a project that would take a bit more time and effort. After we picked up the pieces, we needed for it, the actually work took pretty much the month of December (off and on, work throughout the month). The beast became something a bit larger than life (6×4 playing surface, not counting the support rail that surrounds it). At one point, my friend had been sharing some pictures of the thing completed, with me sitting down next to it but leaning over the rail. Someone had asked him who the kid next to it was. I am not a small human and this thing dwarfs me.

Adding the felt

There is actually enough room on the table itself to play two games of Keyforge or X Wing side by side. We had tested it before official completion by playing a small family tournament where we had several games going at once. No one was crowded out.

Getting closer

So, there you go. It isn’t much of a step by step guide to making a gaming table, but it is where we play now. At least when we play at home. The first official night of gaming we had on it was with the game Smash Up. Just by the sheer size of the table I was afraid that a regular game would be lost in a sea of table space. But it actually worked out quite well. There were a couple times I had to stand up to reach further across but for the most part it felt natural to be playing cards on its surface.

finish up the final bit of felt and one side would be done

It may not have been as big a surprise as originally intended but in the end, it is more the final use that matters with something like this. Now I have the arduous task of building all manner of terrain and such for the different games we now have the space to play. It’s a bit like pulling that loose thread. Before too long you find more to pull at your attention. Maybe that isn’t landing the way I thought it would. It’s a bit like doing a bit of cleaning when you find there is more to be cleaned than you had planned. Yeah, that’s it. You get a bit more space and that means finding new and interesting things to fill it with.

Finished in its current home

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