If you fancy a little more interactive fun,
Rec Room for VR is a great option. Here,
you can just hang out with your friends in
avatar form and play a host of virtual games,
such as paintball and disc golf. You can also
explore thousands of player-created rooms
and create your own. Players can also highly
customise their avatar’s outfit and just have
a bit of creative fun, without the daunting
blank canvas approach of Minecraft. Although
it’s centred around making the most of VR
headsets, you don’t need one to play, and it’s
a super-relaxing experience that’s easy for
anyone to enjoy.
Quiz/puzzle games
While actual pubs have lain dormant for
weeks now, pub quizzes are probably more
popular than ever. Thanks to easy video
conference calling software, such as Google
Meet and Zoom, it’s incredibly easy to gather a
bunch of friends and acquaintances and run a
virtual pub quiz.
There are plenty of resources for
downloading generic pub quiz questions,
making it easy for one person to take on
quizmaster duties. Alternatively, you can get
the people taking part to each provide one
round of questions, making it even more of
a collaborative and fun event. Plus, as it’s all
just about fun among friends, you can skip the
prizes and official scores.
Of course, what’s perhaps best about
virtual pub quizzing is that people who don’t
drink alcohol, or who just don’t like noisy pubs,
get to take part without the social pressure
to drink, and you all avoid the drunk in the
corner shouting the answers. Or at least, if that
person is still around, you can just mute them.
While it’s relatively easy to manually create
a fun pub quiz, technology can make it easier,
and there are a host of social puzzle and quiz
apps too. Jackbox Games, for instance, makes
loads of games that, although purchased
through Steam, can be played through any
web browser. Up to eight people can join in
(with only one licence required) via a phone or
laptop, and you just navigate to the jackbox.tv
website and enter the code to start.
A couple of examples of the games on
offer include Drawful, a drawing game that
requires one player to draw a purposefully
silly thing, and the other players have to guess
what it is. The closest answer gets a tick fromthedrawerandyoucanalsoawardpointsfor
the most amusing.
Fibbage is another great example. Each
person is asked a series of questions, then
the other players are asked to guess their
answers. The trick is that players see all the
answers, and have to try and pick out the
truth. It’s all about coming up with convincing
possible answers for other people, while
avoiding being fooled by others. You can
normally pick up Party Packs of five games
for $24.99 US (around £20 ex VAT), but the
company currently has several deals putting
some party packs at half that price.May the fun continue
What this period will hopefully have taught
many of us, is that there’s a lot to be said for
keeping up with your friends remotely, even
when we are eventually allowed outside
again, particularly if any of your vulnerable
friends and family choose to continue to self-
isolate. Plenty of us have good friends that live
in different cities or different countries too, and
gaming is a great way to socialise with them.
Finding the time and money to physically
visit people can be tricky, but by dedicating
an evening once in a while to check in with
your friends is a great way to keep friendships
ticking over, and ensuring it isn’t suddenly two
years since you last saw your school buddies.
Arranging for a group of you to meet up online
and hang out also takes the pressure off
arranging one-to-one catchups.
Inevitably some games – indeed, no doubt
many – just won’t be for many people. As
examples at Custom PC, I’ve never been won
over by WoW, and our editor Ben doesn’t like
online first-person shooters either, but there
are other social gaming options that appeal
to both of us. Whatever your general gaming
preferences, you should be able to find a way
to remotely involve your friends.Hang out with your friends in avatar form and play a
host of virtual games with Rec Room