Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Analog games played with distant friends

Just because you’re isolated at home doesn’t mean you can’t play old-fashioned board games or card games with a bunch of other folks who are somewhere else.

This idea comes from a colleague, Dave, and involves setting up a board game or card game at one location and using your phone or tablet or laptop to send video of the setup to others.

Wherever the board is that’s where the dice are rolled, the pieces moved, the cards are dealt and hands displayed etc. Everyone else is watching on a screen and deciding what to do, Pieces are moved etc by the owner of the board.

These games can be played in one day or over several days.

Dave had set up a Monopoly game, but all kinds of games would work this way. The only ones that don’t work are those that require some kind of secrecy (hidden cards or Stratego or Battleship, for example). What games might work well? A few examples:

·       Monopoly – as mentioned. This lends itself well to this kind of play.
·       Trivial Pursuit – this will work well as long as there is a good live communication. It’ would be best to have a camera angle that makes it easier for telling the person moving the markers  whether you want to move clockwise or counter-clockwise.
·       Scrabble – for word nerds. As long as everyone agrees to open display of each others’ tiles and to worry about their own words. If everyone can see everyone else’s tiles it’s fair, right? You might want to agree on which dictionary rules for word disputes too.
·       Chess or Checkers – again, just be sure your camera angle makes it easy for the people not present to explain what they want their pieces to do or learn the correct terminology for chess’ algebraic notation
·       Catan – since the only hidden cards are Development cards, this game could be adapted for this kind of play. Perhaps everyone agrees to just be open abut what they hold or choose not to use Development cards.

This is just a short list. I’m sure you  an think of others and, if you do, can share them with me. Thanks!

-Mike Johansson

No comments:

Post a Comment

Stay home - get smarter – really!

As we all settle into new routines around work and home it is somewhat likely many of us have extra time on our hands. What if y...