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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.