Gaming from home: a Treehouse guide
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Treehouse blog!
We hope you’re all keeping safe and well and finding ways to manage in this era in which being asked to believe six previously impossible things before breakfast is actually a little below average.
As you’re probably aware, The Treehouse is currently closed for business until further notice due to the Coronavirus outbreak. It’s a funny old time to be a small business, but we’ve seen some absolutely incredible support over the last few days, and team Treehouse is currently doing OK.
We are aware that the next few weeks are going to be tough for a lot of people, with isolation, anxiety and loneliness becoming central issues. But, for those of us lucky enough to be faced with the question ‘what the heck am I going to do with my time?’ they are also an unprecedented opportunity. Having fun, trying new things and building social connections will all be completely possible over the next few weeks with the right tools, and we believe that games of all kinds are some of the most powerful tools around. We are in the fortunate position of having some expertise in this area, and it’s our aim to put that to good use even while The Treehouse is closed as a venue.
We’ve already been getting messages from people looking for suggestions on how to overcome the various barriers stopping people from playing together at the moment. Over the next few days and weeks we’re going to be considering some of these in more detail and sharing our thoughts and advice.
Because we’re massive nerds, we thought we’d kick things off with a flow chart to give some high-level pointers and show where we think we can help. If you think there are topics you’d like to hear from us about that aren’t covered on here, please get in touch - we would love to hear from you!
Here are some links to things mentioned in the flowchart:
You can find all of Shut Up and Sit Down’s fantastic content via their website here. Their videos are also available on YouTube.
If you feel inspired to buy any games, we would highly recommend you begin your online shopping expedition at Patriot Games, your friendly local game shop in Sheffield City Centre. They’re an independent business and a lovely bunch of people, and like all small businesses they could use your support right now. If they don’t have what you’re looking for then we’d suggest heading over to Board Game Prices, a price comparison site that links to lots of board game stores nationwide. A lot of them are usually cheaper than Amazon for hobby games, just so you know.
You can find Shut Up and Sit Down’s excellent series ‘card games that don’t suck’ here.
Our Social Gaming Facebook group is here if you’d like to join. If you’re interested in roleplaying you might also want to join in our Treehouse Worlds group here.
Tabletop Simulator is a video game available via Steam that creates a virtual environment within which to play board games. There’s a price to buy it, and an additional price for some of the board games you might want to play, but our research suggests that it’s probably the slickest virtual board gaming platform around at the moment.
Tabletopia is an alternative platform which you can run via your browser. There are some amazing games available to play for free, although for a lot of what’s available there are some restrictions e.g. on player count and playing with others unless you sign up for one of their premium subscriptions. Even if you decide to go down this route you get the first month free with no commitment, so this is potentially a good choice if you’re on a budget or just want to see if virtual board gaming is for you. On the downside, it looks like they’re experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment due to a huge influx of players, but hopefully they’ll manage to increase server capacity in the next few days!
Right, hopefully that’s enough to get you started! Please watch this space and keep an eye on our social media for further updates.
EDIT 17/04/20: Some helpful folks on Board Game Geek have been working to put together a fantastic ‘Distance Gaming Guide’ which is full of great suggestions and tips compiled from around the internet. You can find it here.
If you’ve enjoyed this content, you can show your appreciation with a small contribution here, which would be a big help to The Treehouse in this time of limited cash flow.