Diana
What's "Telegaming"?
"Telegaming" is just playing board games over video chat, with a fancy name.
Why "Telegaming"?
Sometimes you just end up in a situation where you have to be apart from your beloved ones
😢 Fortunately,
thanks to Facetime/Skype/Facebook/other video chat tools, one can still
talk to family, friends etc. But playing board games? Isn't that
supposed to be an unplugged face-to-face activity? Well,
it's supposed to be, but it doesn't have to be. It's actually possible
to play board games over video chat - all it takes is just a bit of
patience.
How exactly does "Telegaming" work?
It
goes without saying that you need to have one physical copy to yourself
(there can be exceptions, which I'll explain later). And then, connect
to Skype/Facebook etc, set up the
game together and...boom. It's that simple. Ideally, you'll need video
chat tools on your phone so that you can show each other what your board
looks like.
Can you give me some examples?
The
most suitable games for telegaming are
pencil-and-paper/roll-and-write games. In fact, I'd recommend people
start with this kind of games, to get used to the idea. When you
need to roll the dice, only one person needs to roll and others can see
the dice roll via camera. I've played Railroad Ink and Castles of
Burgundy The Dice Game with Aishwarya; and Tom recently joined us for La
Granja No Siesta. Our next game will hopefully
be Welcome To...(when our Kickstarter copies finally arrive!). An
additional advantage of roll-and-write games is that if the components only
consist of dice and paper sheets, then there's no need for everyone to
own a copy. For example, Aishwarya has sent me a picture
of the sheet for Fleet The Dice Game - I can see it'll just work fine
even if I don't have my own copy.
Is it possible to play a proper board game via telegaming?
It
is, yes! We've played some heavy games via telegaming, such as Uwe
Rosenberg's Fields of Arle and Vital Lacerda's Lisboa. Lisboa took a
long time to play, because of the random
drawing during setup and gameplay. When it was necessary to draw
cards/tiles for the open display, one of us drew and told the other one
what was drawn. In this sense, Fields of Arle worked much better
without random drawing, because all we needed to
do was to check inventory with each other. Our next heavy game in line will
be Agra.
Can you play any game via telegaming?
Unfortunately,
no. It doesn't work with games that involve blind draws and players'
hands must be top secret. Although, in Lisboa, you're technically not
supposed to show
each other your hand, but what one takes from the display is open
information, so we just decided to lay our hand on the table
😆
This sounds like an awful ordeal - can't you just play games with anyone, face to face?
Of course you can - it's not difficult to find random people to play games with; but it's just not the same, is it?
This sounds fun - may I join? 🤗
Only if I like you enough...just joking! Absolutely, the more the merrier! 😀
Aishwarya
Board gaming is an inspiring hobby that is currently at its peak of craziness. As a keen Facebook follower of some of the hot gaming groups, I've been noticing some unbelievable happenings around. Some of them to mention: people are selling $1 Kickstarter pledges for profit; I follow a hashtag called #ifCMONmade, which I love; making cakes that look like "shipping packages"; crafting punchboards to decorate game rooms; meeple nail art; etc.
So if I could get into something fanciful, what could it possibly be? The one thing I do not hear any more is the sad background music whenever I couldn't attend the game nights for the evening and when sometimes not even playing for so many days together. Because we have been gaming online over video chat with physical copies laid down on the table simulating the opponent's moves and still feeling the complete nondigital experience. And we are calling it "Telegaming" as given by Diana :) We have succeeded thus far without any disagreement among the players (3 of us at the moment), with no detriment to our games, found this great when it comes to gaming comfortably and yet appreciating how technology and physical gaming could go hand in hand.
Like they say, "Live the dream!".
So if I could get into something fanciful, what could it possibly be? The one thing I do not hear any more is the sad background music whenever I couldn't attend the game nights for the evening and when sometimes not even playing for so many days together. Because we have been gaming online over video chat with physical copies laid down on the table simulating the opponent's moves and still feeling the complete nondigital experience. And we are calling it "Telegaming" as given by Diana :) We have succeeded thus far without any disagreement among the players (3 of us at the moment), with no detriment to our games, found this great when it comes to gaming comfortably and yet appreciating how technology and physical gaming could go hand in hand.
Like they say, "Live the dream!".
Our journey started with Railroad Ink, on February 14th 2019, then continued with many interesting titles including Fabled Fruit, Castles of Burgundy the Dice Game, etc. We initially thought roll-and-write games were most suitable for telegaming until we came across this gem called Fields of Arle, a heavy game for 2 players, but worked well on such a platform. Then we also played Lisboa, but got intimidated with time management as it is "too" heavy and involved too much of bookkeeping to handle while mimicking the opponent's moves (no matter how high a regard I hold the game itself). I will still be that crazy person to play it again over Skype with an experienced player.
Usually, when it comes to learning the game, we preferred doing it ahead of the session so that it would be easier to start off without the hassle of teaching and hence saving some time.
Sometimes with just 2 players or 2 player games could be spiritless. Luckily we now have a 3rd player, Tom, who volunteered to try this out. Our first 3 player online game was La Granja No Siesta since we all had physical copies at our ends and which we thought would be a good game to usher him into this. Tom shows a well-pronounced enthusiasm and it is a good sign to make more plans for more telegaming in the future.
Telegaming comes in handy depending on the dynamic, unplanned and critical situations like the one I am about to mention. I miss some of the gaming friends I made over the last few years because we had to move to several places as a result of unfavourable conditions. To be more specific, a very close friend from the USA with whom I was gaming 80% of the last few days. He and I share certain common traits when it comes to gaming with friends, and to emphasize this I will also share a small incident that happened lately. He somehow remembered that, in the dim and distant past, maybe about a year ago, that I said I have a passion for Sierra Madre games and was trying to get hold of High Frontier (an expensive rocket science game 🙃). A few days ago, while I was seriously into hunting one down here in the UK, I see this message from him on Boardgamegeek saying, "Aishwarya, I find myself in the unenviable position of having to get rid of most of my collection (I know he has a collection of about 1500 games). Because of your interest, I would like to send you High Frontier, as a gift." While I remained startled, he sent out the package the next day. I shared the charges but that's nothing compared to his intentions. Guess what I suggested to him? Telegaming 😇
He also now thinks it is feasible to win back those wonderful game times that we never thought would be possible again.
We both are kind of lonely gamers and I reckon how satisfying this could be.
I insist that I do not want to rock the boat by just recommending this by entirely negating the point of social gathering. But for people like me who are not frequently able to go out as much, in fact minding the huge collection of games sitting idle on the shelves, telegaming is a blessing in disguise.
Sometimes with just 2 players or 2 player games could be spiritless. Luckily we now have a 3rd player, Tom, who volunteered to try this out. Our first 3 player online game was La Granja No Siesta since we all had physical copies at our ends and which we thought would be a good game to usher him into this. Tom shows a well-pronounced enthusiasm and it is a good sign to make more plans for more telegaming in the future.
Telegaming comes in handy depending on the dynamic, unplanned and critical situations like the one I am about to mention. I miss some of the gaming friends I made over the last few years because we had to move to several places as a result of unfavourable conditions. To be more specific, a very close friend from the USA with whom I was gaming 80% of the last few days. He and I share certain common traits when it comes to gaming with friends, and to emphasize this I will also share a small incident that happened lately. He somehow remembered that, in the dim and distant past, maybe about a year ago, that I said I have a passion for Sierra Madre games and was trying to get hold of High Frontier (an expensive rocket science game 🙃). A few days ago, while I was seriously into hunting one down here in the UK, I see this message from him on Boardgamegeek saying, "Aishwarya, I find myself in the unenviable position of having to get rid of most of my collection (I know he has a collection of about 1500 games). Because of your interest, I would like to send you High Frontier, as a gift." While I remained startled, he sent out the package the next day. I shared the charges but that's nothing compared to his intentions. Guess what I suggested to him? Telegaming 😇
He also now thinks it is feasible to win back those wonderful game times that we never thought would be possible again.
We both are kind of lonely gamers and I reckon how satisfying this could be.
I insist that I do not want to rock the boat by just recommending this by entirely negating the point of social gathering. But for people like me who are not frequently able to go out as much, in fact minding the huge collection of games sitting idle on the shelves, telegaming is a blessing in disguise.
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