Play a Table Game

Every game here is free. Nobody antes, nothing is in a pot, and winning pays nothing but the win. The leaderboard still knows, which is the part that matters.

At a table in the tavern

1. Sit down. Walk to a table on the floor and press a chair.
2. Press the table. Its menu asks what you're laying out.
3. Pick A game…. The games are on two shelves, Boards and Dice, and a third, The season, when there's a season on.
4. Pick one. It's set out on the table, and anybody who sits down with you is in it. There's no code to pass round — being at the table is how you join.

The game sits on the table until it's done, with its own little shelf under it for when you want another.

What's on the shelves

• Dice: Nine Latches — roll two dice, latch tiles that add up to the throw, and keep going until you're stuck; what's left standing is your score, and lowest wins. And Ship, Captain & Crew — five dice, three throws, a six, then a five, then a four, in that order, and whatever's left is your cargo.
• Boards: Draughts, Reversi, Four in a Row, and Backgammon. The table works out what's legal, so you can't make an illegal move by accident, and draughts makes you take a jump when there's one to take.
• The season: whatever the season has brought. During All Hallows, that's bobbing for apples.

A game that can be played alone says so on the shelf: the same name again, marked on your own. That one opens over the room rather than at the table.

Bringing your own die

Some games let you throw your own die instead of the house's: backgammon, darts and bobbing for apples. Pick My own (or My own die) where the game asks whose dice, then tap your die with the iPhone app when the game waits for it. The roll counts as that die's, on its record, like any other tap. Leave it on the house's and the table throws for you.

The dartboard

It hangs on the wall by the bar with a stretch of open floor in front of it. Walk up to it and the board opens; Throw a leg starts one. Leave halfway through and your leg is still there when you come back, rather than a fresh 501.

Upstairs, on your own

The table in your room upstairs is everything you play by yourself, in four pages:

• Your adventurers — the characters you take to other people's games.
• Games — Today's throw, which is the same deal for everybody that day, so you can see how your friends did with it; and Games for one: Nine Latches, Ship, Captain & Crew, peg solitaire and patience, each played for a best score.
• Puzzles — board problems to solve, a fresh one daily, or practice.
• By post — below.

By post

A board game with a friend, one move at a time, over days. Draughts, reversi, four in a row, backgammon and chess can all go by post — chess isn't on the tavern's shelf, but it will travel.

1. Open the table upstairs and its By post page.
2. Send a game to a friend. It has to be somebody on your friends list.
3. Move when it's your move. A note arrives when it's your turn, and opens the game right where it is.

It's meant to be slow, but not forever. A move left waiting a few days gets a nudge; one left a fortnight loses the game for whoever's sitting on it. There's nothing riding on it, so all a forfeit costs is the game.