Outdoor Gaming Table - input needed

I don't know exactly what it is that you have planned... Am I correct in thinking that you will do the opposite of an air hockey table (which has pin holes from which the air emanates). I know you want to keep your details secret (and this is 100% acceptable)... I'm just wondering HOW you get the air to flow DOWN so as to keep the cards, board and other components down on the "table"...

Just curious... Feel free to share what you feel comfortable talking about openly.

Cheers! (And I personally think it's a good idea... Just wondering how the fluid dynamics would work...)

I feel dumb that it's such a simple solution... So kudos to you. Like I said earlier before you explained your idea... I think a unit for camping or just in the backyard... Works because all you need is one gust of wind and your gaming session is over.

That could not only spoil the play session... But an afternoon could be spoiled too... And it's a shame too. You want positive experiences.

About the size, I would ensure that the play area fits on outdoor wooden tables.

But definitely sounds interesting!

Will people buy it?
Sure, if it works there will be plenty of people willing to throw their money at something like this? I imagine the "upscale gamer" would love something like this on their back deck or whatever.

Will it work?
Wind might not lift a game board off this table, but anything on top of that game board will still be blown around. In fact, it seems to me that anything stacked will not hold so well. Have you thought of this puzzle? Like, how to keep a deck of cards from blowing around? How to keep miniatures from blowing around?

There has been some headway in using a projector above a table, projected downwards, for map surfaces and game boards that won't move around. Projectors have even been made dynamic and can provide sophisticated zoom, rotation, special effects, and real-time updating.

Maybe collaboration with these projection designers is an avenue you can try?

I think my post was lost. Magnet et metallic surface can also be used.

For card decks, maybe look at modifying the deck boxes/card shufflers used by casinos. They are already designed to pull out one card at a time, and if you find a cheap one somewhere, you could cut it in half and see if there's a better way to build it that would suit card game flow (thinking of MTG and how you often need to handle the whole deck so you can search for/ bury cards). I may be remembering this wrong, but I think UNO also tried to solve this once, and built a swiveling deck box for the middle of the table.

Casinos in general have many ways to control how cards, dice, and other things can be monitored for cheating reasons. From the height of the craps table's edge, to the way chips are exchanged for money, a lot of security and control science has gone into their design. I imagine there has to be some inspiration that could be taken from a socially-distanced trip to the one nearest you.

I watch Chris Ramsay on Facebook.
He is a magician and takes intricate wooden, metal and mechanical puzzle gadgets apart.

Last month or October 2020, he showed in one video where he goes to the dollar stores, walmarts and even antique stores and shops for poker decks. The odd poker boxes to the generic boxes and most of the time you can buy casinos poker decks that are sealed (that's a given) but the casinos sell their older packs to get rid of them.

Prices for the boxes vary on where you buy them, but he also mentioned that the cards are smoother to handle while doing card Tricks for flourishing, ripping apart etc.

Jesse