Table Press · help
Glossary
Insider terms used across games, curriculum, and tools — defined once so cold visitors do not have to guess.
- Play gate
- A world-class play rubric every Table Press card game must pass before it ships — scorecard mean, pillar floors, zero dealbreakers, and table proof. Games that cleared the gate are print-ready.
- Gated
- A game that has cleared the play gate and has a shareable intro, rules page, print sheet, and (usually) a Table Lab.
- Table Press
- This site — free print-and-play card games plus The Game Design Ladder, an open curriculum for teaching game design. No accounts; progress lives in your browser Backpack.
- The Ladder
- The Game Design Ladder — an open curriculum from grade 1 through graduate practice. Six strands, eight bands, twelve observable competencies. Free, print-first, no accounts.
- Bands
- Age and stage levels on The Ladder (e.g. G1–2, G6–8, undergraduate). Each band is organized around one driving question about rules, feel, intent, or contribution.
- Strands
- Six subject areas every band touches: Systems (SYS), Play & Design Practice (PLY), Narrative (NAR), Human Factors (HUM), Craft & Technology (CFT), and Context & Business (CTX).
- Observable competencies
- Twelve entry-standard skills (E1–E12) traced across bands on the Coverage page — e.g. ships a playable, reads a system, holds an ethical position.
- Prompt Refinery
- The design gate that turns a crude topic pitch into a print-ready ~52-card game. Every gated game on Table Press ran through this process.
- Table Lab
- Browser hotseat and bot simulator for gated games — same rules kernel as the printed deck. Analog play remains the product; the lab is for teaching, analysis, and iteration.
- Playtest queue
- The /runway/ page — a human playtest hub for gated games. Track status, print decks, run hypothesis-first sessions, and file evaluations. Not the RUNWAY card game (that lives at /capital-run/).
- RUNWAY (card game)
- A gated 54-card pitch game about building a company out of the wrong kind of capital. Lives at /capital-run/ — not the same as the playtest queue page at /runway/.
- One pasteable page linking every gated game intro, rules, print sheet, and Table Lab — https://game-design-pi.vercel.app/shareable-demo/
- Backpack
- Local browser storage for rubric scores, playtest logs, and Table Lab notes. Per-device only — export JSON often; clearing site data destroys it.
- Reference games (Canon)
- Games assigned as texts on The Ladder — a shared syllabus of forty, including analog, non-Western, non-commercial, contested, and failed work — studied for design lessons, not shipped as Table Press print decks.
- Coverage
- A traceability matrix mapping competencies (E1–E12) to bands and lessons. Computed from lesson frontmatter, not hand-waved.
- Rubric
- Self-scoring tool for the six strands — Novice through Graduate-ready (0–4). Used for placement on the Adult track and portfolio evidence in Backpack.
- Adult track (Bridge)
- Compressed adult on-ramp — roughly eighty hours of systems literacy from K–8 bands. Separate from the K–12 sequence; score on /rubric/ to skip modules you already hold.