quotingTable Mesh lets a group of friends play a board game together at a real table,
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each on their own phone. The phones find each other over Bluetooth (and Wi-Fi
when there is one) and form a small mesh: no internet, no server, no sign-up,
and no phone is the host. Every phone runs the game's rules itself and only the
moves travel, so a game keeps going when a phone sleeps, drops out or restarts —
it catches up from the others when it comes back. A tablet in the middle can
show the whole board.
**Included: Mensch ärgere Dich nicht** — the German family classic for 2–4
players, with the full rules, table dice or your own real dice, a referee
override, bots to play against on your own, an in-game rulebook and tour, and
a full-screen table view for the tablet.
**More games from Nostr.** Games are small sandboxed modules, and every game
is a signed Nostr event (kind 7529) naming one archive of its files.
*Discover* shows the games of the Table Mesh publisher and, with your Nostr
key, those of the people you follow — looked up on the relays each publisher
names — and downloads them from Blossom servers, checking every byte against
the signed release before it is installed. Updates come only from the
publisher who made the game. A game module has no network access and no
storage: it can only receive moves and propose moves.
**Who is around, and their tables.** While the app is open, *Play* shows the
people nearby with Table Mesh — over Bluetooth and on the same Wi-Fi — who is
free and who is at a table, and the tables you can join with one tap: you sit
at a free seat, or a tablet shows the board. It also lists the games the
phones around you have: ask for one, the other person taps *Share*, and it
comes over the Wi-Fi network or over Bluetooth, checked against its
publisher's signature. Game files can also be sent by hand, over e-mail or a
chat.
**A Bluetooth engine made for the table.** On Android 12 and later the phones
at a table form one group: a phone is the hub and relays for the others, a
tablet shows the board as a spoke, and a new hub takes over when the hub
leaves.
**Your Nostr key, if you want one.** No key is needed to play, or to read the
Table Mesh community on Nostr — one public group with a forum and a chat.
With your key — created in the app and backed up as an encrypted ncryptsec,
imported, or kept in Amber or a remote signer — you can talk there and edit
your Nostr profile; with it, or just your npub, *Discover* shows games from
the people you follow. The app holds your key for itself only and never signs
for other apps.
**No Google, no tracking.** Nothing to sign up for, no ads, no analytics, no
Google Play Services.
**When something goes wrong, you see it.** Every phone keeps the whole game
history, hash-chained. If two phones ever disagree, the table turns red and a
person decides which history to keep — nothing is merged behind your back.
This is an early release. The Bluetooth engine has been tested on seven
devices at one table — six phones of one model and a tablet; reports from
real tables with other phones are very welcome.
Bullsaw on Nostr: Usch a simple but very very interesring idea, local mesh first 🫘 ...
Usch a simple but very very interesring idea, local mesh first 🫘