Saved Table Setups
A setup is a saved snapshot of an entire table. Instead of dragging out your board, shuffling decks, and laying out player areas at the start of every session, you save that arrangement once and reload it in a single click. Setups are one of the most time-saving features in Designer Den, so they're worth understanding well.
Each setup belongs to a project (see How Your Data Fits Together), and it persists in your account. A room's live table is temporary; a setup is how you make an arrangement permanent and reusable.
What a Setup Captures
A setup records the full state of the table at the moment you save it:
- every piece's position and rotation,
- face state (which side is up) and groupings (decks, stacks, bags),
- zones and text labels,
- and your camera position and zoom, so the view is framed the same way each time.
Note
A setup captures live copies on the table, not the underlying component blueprints. If you later change a component in your library, reopen the setup and re-sync or re-spawn to pick up the change. See Editing & Syncing Components.
Saving a Setup
- Arrange the table and frame the camera exactly how you want play to begin.
- Click the save (disk) icon in the host toolbar.
- Give it a name and save.
- Optionally click the ★ star to mark it as the project's default.
Tip
Build one "clean start" setup per game, board down, decks shuffled, player areas marked, and you will never set up by hand again.
Loading a Setup
There are three ways a setup comes back:
- Automatically on launch: if a project has a default setup, Launch Playtest Room opens straight into it. If you have several setups, you're prompted to pick one.
- Mid-session: click the load icon in the host toolbar to switch to a different setup without leaving the room.
- From the project: the Saved Table Setups section lists them all, where you can rename, reorder, or delete.
Pressing 0 at any time returns the camera to the setup's saved framing.
Free vs. Pro
The feature works on both plans; Pro raises the limit and unlocks sharing.
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Setups saved per project | 1 | 50 |
| Mark a default and auto-load it | Yes | Yes |
| Make a setup public (community lobby) | No | Yes |
| Private share links (custom slug, player cap) | No | Yes |
| Record sessions from a setup (replay) | No | Yes |
Important
On Free you keep one setup per project. Saving again overwrites your existing setup, or you can delete it first. Pro raises this to 50 per project, so you can keep separate setups for different player counts, scenarios, or test variants.
Sharing a Setup (Pro)
A shared setup lets other people host a room pre-loaded with your game's pieces, even when you aren't online. From the project's Saved Table Setups, open a setup and:
- Make it public to list it in the community lobby, where anyone can pick it up and host.
- Generate a private share link with an optional custom slug (like
/play/setup/my-game), a cap on players per room, and the ability to revoke it later.
Tip
Public setups are a great way to demo your game. Send a link and a playtester can be at a fully set-up table in seconds, with no account and nothing to install.
Note
If a project becomes read-only (you downgraded to Free, or locked the project to free up a slot), its public and shared setups are automatically turned off. Unlock the project to share them again.
Related: How Your Data Fits Together · Starting & Joining Rooms · Session Replay · Plans & Pricing