While I was standing back and raising a skeptical eyebrow at the Infinity Game Table’s technical specs, my 5-year-old son and his grandparents spent hours and hours just enjoying game after game on the table and at no point stopped to hum, haw, or tsk about graphics with jagged edges. One thing I wasn’t able to test was how more advanced board games, such as Ticket to Ride or Pandemic (which are both en route in the coming months) will play on the giant touchscreen, and what they’ll cost. For instance, missiles rain down from above in Battleship, creating a fiery explosion when you successfully strike a target. Arcade1Up provides flimsy paper blockers to use for games like this, but they feel like an afterthought. Instead of trying to catch a bouncing ball with a paddle, you’ll launch several balls at once by angling your shot and then letting loose.

Under here you’ll also find two USB ports, a microSD card slot, and even a compartment for a rechargeable battery, making the Infinity Game Table completely wireless. It has become a fast favorite in our household, particularly with my 9-year-old daughter, but there’s something here for the whole family. If you’ve already done that, your item hasn’t arrived, or it’s not as described, you can report that to Etsy by opening a case. Plans are for a subscription service giving access to a large number of titles, with the option of individual purchases of a specific item. Some of them support online multiplayer too, so you can link to up to six friends' tables and play together.Removing the legs is a bit finicky, but it's nice to have the option when you want to hide it away (or sit it atop another table or on the floor to play). The Infinity Game Table certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s a great investment for families, with a wide range of games and activities in an ever-growing library. But then you remember that the tabletop is actually a screen, not a solid surface like the average coffee table. The board has “3D touch” technology, which means it can even sense gestures just above (but not touching) the screen.

Gathering around a table with friends and family and spending hours playing a board game is an experience that’s yet to have been replicated well digitally. While some may find this inconvenient, I think it’s a great way to keep your kids from indiscriminately draining your bank account on a whim. Featuring the likes of Hasbro’s Monopoly™, Trivial Pursuit™ as well as puzzles, card games and many other mini-games* - this electronic board game table will bring modernised gameplay to your old classics whilst letting you discover new family favourites! If you’ve ever played the Japanese small-box board game A Fake Artist Goes to New York, then this is essentially a digital recreation of that game. Available exclusively at GAME, the Infinity Gaming Table is the latest device to launch under the Arcade1Up umbrella.

The software and interfaces are early in the process, in many cases just placeholders, but the Crystal Bay game in particular seemed like a great example of what hardware like this can do.

Placing cards around the outer edge of the board triggered powers and abilities, while a central lighthouse in the middle of the board, represented by a plastic lighthouse miniature, was able to sweep across the water's surface on command, revealing treasures and traps beneath the waves. If you belong to the kind of family that spends half the evening squabbling about which board game to play then look away now, as Arcade1Up’s Infinity Game Table packs around 40 of the things into one very slick-looking electronic table. If I wanted to play the original Pandemic, I have to admit I’d be hard-pressed to play the physical board game over this version on the Infinity Game Table.It’s always clear whose turn it is because the table prompts you, plus it teaches you how to play unfamiliar games and alleviates doubt about the rules. The presentation of each game also comes across as quite basic, with the experiences generally feeling surprisingly less interactive than they do with the physical boards or cards. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. All of the Hasbro games you can currently download are simpler titles that appeal to a broader audience.

The company says that being digital and having online access means that the library of games and other activities will grow over time.The Infinity Game Table, for all of its power under the hood and interactive games at your fingertips, is a fairly unassuming device. For Scrabble, where players want to keep their lettered tiles a secret from all players at all times, the Infinity Game Table includes four folded paper shields that can be placed on the table blocking other players from seeing each other’s tiles. There are also a couple of USB ports the company included to keep its options open; it may add support for controllers or other devices down the line. Having been recently playing the GeekDad-Approved Clank: Catacombs, I can’t help but imagine how fun a game like that might be on the platform. We have enjoyed group games of Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Sorry, Guess Who, Battleship, and Checkers, and my daughter has completed countless jigsaws.