After a hard day’s work or a stressful day at school, gaming is a wonderful way for everybody to relax and have fun together. Since time immemorial, families and friends have held parlor nights or game weekends to engage with each other and build closer bonds.
For this reason, there has been a myriad of games invented to capture our imagination and test our wits. From simple card games for kids to complicated roleplaying games for an entire party, we are spoilt for choice. However, there are a few classic games that have stood the test of time and continue to be favorites in every living room.
Most quality distance gaming platforms offer a variety of classic games such as Uno, Yahtzee, and Scattergories. Other fun games include GeoGuess, where players are shown an image from Google Street View and have to indicate on the world map where they think the image was taken.
Uno
Uno is probably the perfect example of an all-ages card game. Anyone from the age of seven years or older can easily understand the rules, and anyone from seven to seventy can enjoy playing. Because it is so accessible, Uno is often the first card game introduced to young children.
The aim of the game is straightforward: Be the first to get rid of all your cards to win. During their turn, players have to put down a card that matches the displayed card by color or number. They can also choose to use a special action card to change the direction of gameplay or to sabotage other players.
Despite its simplicity, Uno can be fast-paced, exciting, and infuriating. The special action cards are designed to test each player’s skill, luck, and deviousness. And players—especially the kids—love to shout “Uno!” when they have one last card left in their hand.
Scattergories
Scattergories (based on the traditional game Categories) is a challenging creative-thinking word game that is great for parties or people working on their vocabulary. Due to its slightly more linguistic nature, it is usually marked for ages 12 and up.
The objective of the game is to name unique objects for the listed categories that start with a specific letter. Players roll a special 20-sided die to determine the letter to use. For example, if the category is “vegetable” and the letter is K, an acceptable answer can be “kale.”
Scattergories comes with a list of recommended categories, but players can also choose to come up with custom categories to keep the game interesting. Each round is timed for three minutes, although players can decide to shorten or lengthen the time for each round.
At the end of the round, players receive a point for each answer that is not duplicated by other players, and players can dispute answers as well. They can also receive bonus points for using alliteration in proper nouns such as “Trinidad and Tobago.” The player with the highest score wins.
Yahtzee
Originally invented for playing on a yacht, Yahtzee is a game that requires minimal props. While the packaged commercial version of the game comes with a dice cup, scorecards, and some plastic tokens, the game can be played as long as you have five dice and know the rules.
During their turn, a player rolls all five dice. After the first roll, they have two opportunities to save any dice they want andre-roll the rest. When the rolling is done, the player has to choose one of the 13 scoring categories to record their dice score in this turn. Each category can only be used once.
The score depends on how well the roll performs against the category’s scoring rules, and bonus points are awarded for special rolls. At the end of 13 turns, when all the categories have been exhausted, the accumulated points are totaled, and the player with the most points wins.
Getting Social Online
Since the onset of the pandemic, people have been trying to find ways to spend time with loved ones despite being physically apart. Distance gaming is a result of this need. With distance gaming, friends and family members can play games with each other by connecting to an online platform.
Distance gaming is not only for pandemic times either. It is a great activity to spend time with people who live on the other side of the world, perhaps a sibling studying overseas or a partner on a work trip. And because the best distance gaming platforms allow you to invite people to your private lobbies, you can fill your virtual game room with your posse for a enjoyable night in together.
Gaming is a wonderful way to relax and socialize. While we may not be able to have huge gatherings yet, distance gaming can fill the gap. Whether you are three houses or three time zones apart, distance gaming can help you to close the distance and spend quality time with the people that you love.