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Tabletop Playground is the closest thing to DiceyTable in spirit: a physics tabletop whose creators write actual code, in a JavaScript-family language, rather than only dragging components around. It is also a paid game you install, built on Unreal Engine 4, with its mods on mod.io. This page is the honest version of that comparison, and it does not end with us winning every row.
We make DiceyTable, so treat this as our side of the story — we have tried to keep it checkable. Tabletop Playground details were read off its Steam store page and its own site on 20 September 2026 and may have changed since; anything we could not verify is described without a number rather than guessed at.
| Feature | DiceyTable | Tabletop Playground |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | A browser tab, on desktop, Chromebook, tablet or phone. No installer. | A downloaded app for Windows, macOS and SteamOS/Linux, sold on Steam, Epic, the Microsoft Store and Humble. |
| Price | Free to play, and free to build and publish. Optional $1.99 or $4.99 a month adds private and friends-only tables, monthly chips and a faster earn rate. Nothing about creating is behind the paywall. | $14.99 on Steam as its normal price, a one-time purchase, with a four-pack available. It discounts often, so check the store before taking that as final. |
| What each player needs | A free account, for every player at the table — that is a real cost of joining, and we are working on guest seats. Nothing to download on any device. | A store account, the app installed, and a copy of the game. A mod.io account is only needed to use community content, not to play. |
| Physics | A Bullet/Ammo rigid-body simulation compiled to WebAssembly, with mass, friction, bounce and damping set per object. | A rigid-body physics sandbox built on Unreal Engine 4 — the same idea as ours. |
| Players per table | Eight seats plus spectators, each seat with a private hand. | Up to 16 players simultaneously online, per its store page. |
| Scripting | TypeScript in an in-page Monaco editor. It type-checks and compiles as you save, and only the compiled output runs — sandboxed, with no network and no DOM access. | JavaScript, advertised as supporting complex rules and actions, written against a documented in-game API. |
| Where your game lives | A public GitHub repo you own, with the models, art, manifest and scripts in it. Anyone can read it, fork it, or keep playing it if we disappear. | mod.io, linked to your store account. |
| Editing | The editor is the same web app as the table — hierarchy, inspector, gizmos, undo, deck builder, model import and optimisation, all in the browser. | A built-in in-game editor for building and packaging mods. |
| VR | WebXR — open the table link in a standalone headset's browser, no PC needed. | VR through SteamVR, with and without motion controllers, so it expects a PC. |
| Importing your own models | GLB and glTF plus FBX, OBJ, COLLADA, STL, PLY, 3DS, 3MF, OFF, LWO and DirectX .x, converted to GLB in the browser on the way in, with an inspection report and in-place optimisation. | Custom model and asset import is a headline feature. |
| Catalogue | Small and new. Most games today are played with friends from a shared link rather than found in a public catalogue. | A mod.io library that is smaller than Tabletop Simulator's, but well ahead of ours. |
| Playing offline | Installable as an app, and a game you have already played can be opened solo offline. | An installed desktop application, so it runs without a connection. |
Tabletop Playground is a genuinely good product, and in several places it is simply ahead of us.
DiceyTable is a link — no purchase, no install — so you can see how the physics and the TypeScript editor feel before deciding which one your group should be on.