Hidden Areas now available!

We are happy to introduce a new big feature on Tabletopia: hidden areas! Hidden areas are zones on surfaces which content is hidden from everyone except its owner.

You may have seen this feature appear before, as some of its functionality has already been available on Tabletopia. But now we have two major updates: first, hidden areas are now available for everyone in the Workshop, and second, we have made many improvements to the flexibility of this feature to improve the play experience.

Hidden areas have previously been trialed in Guild Master

For players, you can use them for hiding secret information, taking a random card from another player, revealing a card to your ally while keeping it secret from others, or just as a supplement to your hand. This gives you much more flexibility for navigating the digital space with games that include this functionality.

For designers, this means adding a hidden area is now available in the Workshop exactly like any other element. In the setup you can adjust the behaviour of hidden areas in your game.

Hidden areas can be bound to the seat of a particular color. Players can detach hidden areas from their seat during the game and attach them to another one. A seat can have more than one hidden area. Hidden areas can be locked, moved, and rotated as other game components. Only the owner can unlock and move their hidden area.

You can see how many elements there are in the hidden areas of other players. If this quantity is secret information, this function can be disabled in the setup. By clicking and dragging the mouse on your opponent’s hidden area you can take a random element from there - just like from a bag. Other players do not see what you are taking unless you put it openly on the table.

Hidden areas can be used in various ways. For example, they are needed in games that in real life use a screen or other means to hide some elements from other players. It happens in many games, from old-time classics like Perudo:

or newer, more complex titles such as Oceans and King’s Dilemma:

Hidden areas can be a handy alternative to a player’s hand. For instance, in deck building games like Hero Realms you can simply lay out your cards in your player area instead of taking them into hand every round and then placing them back onto the table:

Moreover, hidden areas make card drafting or any other form of components exchange much easier as well. In The Isle of Cats, every player has a hidden zone attached to their color. When you need to pass your hand of cards to another player, simply put them into your hidden area and then attach it to another player through the round menu. That player will be able to see the cards in that hidden area and can also move the zone closer to their player area if needed. Similarly, another player may reveal their hidden area to you so that you take one card into your hand and pass it further. Card drafting has never been easier!

You can find more details in our Help. Try out any of these games now to test this functionality, or add a hidden area to your game in the Workshop!