My goals for this project are to turn an old or unused android tablet into a useful tabletop gaming tool. This is an easy project.

Hardware

It doesn’t matter what tablet we use as long as it’s usable. We don’t want any annoyance or distraction from the game. Thus the battery needs to hold a charge and it should not be a slow laggy mess. (If your tablet feels slow follow this guide without delay.)

Useful apps

Catch A Tiger By The Tail

Our first app is Chwazi. This is an app that selects one of several fingers placed on the screen. Its a fast and easy way to pick who goes first. Also it randomizes team selection. The only limitation to this app is your devices multi-touch capacity. My tablet has a limit of 5 so i can only select from up to 5 players at a time.

Score Keeping

The second app is ScorePal. This is an app that allows you to create a profile for each player and game. It allows you to keep track of the current score and scores of games past.

Some games have rules

We will want to keep our game manuals on our tablet. If your tablet doesn’t have a good PDF viewer i recommend this one. Then you’ll want to start downloading game manual PDF’s. The majority of game publishers make their manuals available online for free. (There is also an archive of game manuals here)

Keep the basics in mind

Typically your tablet will have a good clock/timer app, Calculator app, Notes app, Those will all certainly come in handy. But if you play word games you’ll probably want an offline dictionary app as well.

For the best experience

Some games have their own companion apps that combine some features of the apps above to for their game specifically.

Now get out there and play some games!