Games to be played over the internet at the same time?

February 2, 2013 9:26 AM

My husband is away for work for the next few weeks. I'm having a few friends over this afternoon to play boardgames/drink beer. Assuming he can take care of the beer himself, how can we replicate/include him in this afternoon?

We all have iPhones. He has an iPad, and my friend can bring hers. He's got a windows laptop with webcam, and I've got a mac laptop (also with webcam).

We're going to be about 5 people strong. We typically play games like Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Monopoly, Dominion. Card games like Gin, Poker, Hearts are good too.

Ideally, this would be something that is actively played in a group. All of the iphone multi-player games I can think of are more like playing chess by mail—take your turn when you get to it. This should be actively played. A game like SpaceTeam would be great, but it requires you all to be on the same WiFi network.

Bonus points if it includes the ability to talk shit to other players, which is a staple of our boardgame+beer times.

Thanks!

posted by fontophilic to sports, hobbies, & recreation (4 answers total)

Skype + Fiasco.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:46 AM on February 2

You can play Dominion and Settlers online, if everyone's willing to bring a laptop.
posted by segfault at 12:51 PM on February 2

You could give Dixit a try. There's a free iPhone app which has both local and "online" wifi options. I think the game has integrated voice functionality, but if that fails you always have the webcam. If you don't know Dixit everyone's playing each round, you don't have to wait for others to take their turn. There's a short description and more info on the game here.

If you like word games you could all load up Wordament on your iPhones. You wouldn't be directly playing against each other, but you could shout out your scores at the end of each round. This would perhaps be more of a filler game for a few minutes only.

And of course there are tons of board games you can play on your iDevices (Settlers, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride), or online (Yucata and Brettspielwelt both have lots of games). But, as you point out, with most boardgames you'll have people taking turns while the rest have to wait.
posted by bjrn at 1:06 PM on February 2

Google+ hangout.
posted by PSB at 6:15 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]