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Gaming via Zoom

Greetings fellow Quarantinees*,

*noun, plural: people confined to the indoors to prevent the spread of a virus; not to be confused with Quarantinis: strong, alcoholic drinks consumed by said people)

This week Team Treehouse have been experimenting with playing board games using Zoom as a fun way to (virtually) spend time with friends and family in other locations as we all get used to our new state-of-indoors. Here are the findings of our research…

What is Zoom?

Zoom is essentially a video conferencing platform which you can sign up to and use for free, with a few limitations which I’ll come to in a moment. The sort of set-up I’m about to describe would probably be perfectly possible via Skype and no doubt other services, but there seems to be a consensus that Zoom is the most slickest and most flexible option available at the moment. I’ve certainly be impressed with it in our experiments so far.

The basic gist of a gaming session via Zoom is that someone sets up a physical board game wherever they are, then sets up one or more devices (probably laptops, smartphones or tablets) with a camera and microphone so that people in other locations can see the board and the components they need to join in with game. Participants get a split-screen view of feeds from the cameras linked into the ‘meeting’ so they can see the other players as well as what’s going on in the game, and there’s an incorporated audio feed so you can all chat while you play.

Technical stuff

One limitation of the free subscription to Zoom is that meetings involving more than two participants (in this case devices in different locations rather than actual people) are limited to 40 minutes, although ‘one-to-one’ meetings are unlimited. We got freebies on our first two meetings allowing us to go on indefinitely, but I don’t know if this is the norm or how long it will last. Upgrading to a paid subscription costs £12 per month, which is a fairly hefty chunk, but the cost could be split with other people in your gaming group since only the meeting’s host needs the premium version in order to lift the restriction.
You can, in theory, add extra devices in one location without needing multiple subscriptions, which would be handy for showing both the board, players and components. We had trouble making this work using phones and ended up signing in with multiple accounts to create the same effect, but it looks much more straightforward if you have a separate webcam. Each time you add a new device in your location the first thing you’ll want to do is turn off the microphone and mute the volume to prevent horrible feedback effects.
Before your gaming session, you’ll need to ask the other players to create a Zoom account and install the programme/ app. You all then need to tell the host the email address you used to set up your account so they can invite you to the meeting. You’ll then get an email and a notification within the app with a link you can click on to join.
If you’re in the location with the physical game, you’ll want to have a think about what the other players will need to be able to see on order to play and how you can set this up. We made use of an Anglepoise-style lamp to suspend a phone over the board, but you’ll need to get creative here with whatever is available where you are! It can take a little while to get it right so you might want to have a play around before you start the meeting.

Our Zoom experiments so far

Our first foray into gaming via Zoom was playing the introductory game of Pandemic Legacy Season 2 (preparing for the post-apocalypse!) with three people, two in the same room as the game and one elsewhere.

It took us a little while to get going after a fair amount of fiddling, but once we were underway it felt like we were able to have a decent game with everyone involved. The only difference from normal play was that the absent player needed to have his cards drawn for him and arranged in front of a camera where he could see them to decide what to do on his turn, but we found it wasn’t too hard to share all the information he needed.

At the end we felt like we’d all had some good, silly fun together as you can probably tell from the screen shots, and as an added bonus we even got to hang out with Sam the sleepy dog in between turns.

Our second experiment was slightly more ambitious: a family and friends games night involving eight players in six different places. We played several games of Codenames and a round of Just One.

It was the first time using Zoom for half the participants, and only our second go at hosting, so to be honest I was expecting chaos! There were a couple of issues with batteries running out part-way through and a bit of swapping out as people tried to find the best device to use, but apart from that it was all pretty smooth. I was very impressed with the audio quality: Zoom was able to handle multiple people talking a once in a way that felt very natural. I would say it was no more difficult to get a word in than it would be around a noisy dinner table, and even one participant with hearing difficulties was able to join in fully.

Both games we tried worked well in this format. Codenames was made easier by the fact that pretty much everyone involved had a copy of the game in their location, so one Spymaster was always able to draw a card from their local supply and send a picture to their counterpart on the other team. There are plenty of ways to get around this if you only have one copy of the game, e.g. sending a series of numbered pictures of the grid cards to everyone before you start, and then choosing a number to use at the start of each round. Following some mild accusations of cheating, we also agreed on a system where Spymasters weren’t allowed to reveal whether their team’s guess was correct until everyone on their team was giving a thumbs up to show they were on board.

Just One was even easier to get going with. We started each turn holding the word card up to the camera while the guesser closed their eyes and picked a number. Then, everyone wrote their clue on whatever they had to hand, be scrap paper or a tablet drawing app, and shared what they’d written by holding them up to the camera, again while the guesser closed their eyes. Apart from losing the satisfaction of the tiny whiteboards it was basically indistinguishable from the regular game. This is definitely one that you could play without anyone having the physical game at all: you could easily use word cards from Pictionary, Articulate or similar, then all you need is paper and pens.

Which games will work via Zoom?

This approach is a great way to recreate the sociable aspects of a games night, but it definitely isn’t going to work for all games. Generally, we’d suggest keeping it simple and choosing things which are familiar to all players if possible, especially to start with, because otherwise the extra techno-faff is likely to make people lose interest. If you do want to try something more complex, then co-operative is the way to go: it’s hard to think of any heavy, competitive games where those not in the room wouldn’t be at a major disadvantage, whereas helping each other out and sharing information is all part-and-parcel of the co-op experience.

Some suggestions to try:

A Fake Artist Goes to New York has been recommended to us as a great game to play via Zoom. This isn’t one we have available to play at the cafe because of the sheer impossibility of keeping so many different colours of dry-wipe marker working, but it’s ideally suited to Zoom’s shared whiteboard function, and you can easily make the components you need without having to buy the physical game. The only difference from real-life play other than the digital whiteboard is that players would need to take turns opening their eyes to look at a card held up by the Question Master instead of having it passed to them.
Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space is a game that we’ve had a lot of fun with in the past, although be warned: it might be a bit on the complex side for new gamers. Check out this Shut Up and Sit Down review to get the gist. It’s available to download as a print-and-play for a bargainous $1.49, which provides a really easy way to share the game across different locations: everyone prints out the same map, then one person looks after the decks of cards (or, you could spread the burden of cutting out the cards between multiple people and have each deck in a different place). You would need to employ some strategic eye closing and you have to trust the other players not to peak at what’s been drawn when it’s not for them, but if you can manage that then this could be a great choice.
Wavelength is THE current favourite game amongst the Treehouse staff (watch the review and rules explanation here to get an idea of why), and would be entirely playable via Zoom. It’s a fairly recent Kickstarter and hasn’t been widely available to buy as yet, but even if you’re not lucky enough to know someone with a physical copy then there are still ways of having a go. Someone has created a PowerPoint version of the game which you can download from Board Game Geek here, although there’s a bit of fiddly set-up needed from the Game Master to do it this way: they’ll need to go in to the presentation and delete the turquoise sections to reveal the answers, then take screen shots to send to the clue giver each turn. This does also mean that they won’t be able to join in with the game themselves which is a shame. Alternatively, if you can trust your group not to cheat (easier if you’re playing co-operatively and not taking it too seriously) you could use the answers from the very entertaining Twitter account @WavelengthDaily to have a casual game without the set-up.

Good luck with your Zoom adventures! We’d love to hear from you about how you get on and if you have any more game recommendations for this format.

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