Remote Game Night 1 - Jackbox & HouseParty

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll share part 1 of my favorite games to play remotely with friends and family.  In this video, I'll talk about Jackbox and HouseParty games.

Being in lockdown has forced us to get creative in the way that we connect with people.  Zoom and FaceTime aren't perfect replacements for in-person contact, but they do help.  What I've also found is that we are using this time to actually connect better with people who live far away.  And maybe that is the way these creative socializing options will really benefit us after this -- we will use technology better to have more meaningful and richer interactions with those that we don't have the luxury of seeing frequently.

I've tested out a ton of games to play remotely -- my poor family is ready to kill me -- and I wanted to share with you which ones worked well and which ones didn't.  I have really 3 categories of games that we have tried out: Jackbox games, games on HouseParty, and other games to play while Zooming.  In this video, I'll talk about the first 2 categories p.  First

Jackbox Games

I ordered a couple of game packs from a company called Jackbox that has been making games for groups for many years.  Their games are meant to be played in person and shown on a large screen, but you can easily make them work remotely.  Just set up a Zoom for your group, have everyone join the Zoom call and whoever purchased the Jackbox games shares their computer screen.  Then, each player goes to Jackbox.tv on their phone, enters the specific code for that instance of the game (which is shared on the screen, and they can participate.  Whenever individual players enter answers on their phone, those answers appear on the shared screen so that everyone can see and participate.  It works well.  That said, this was not my favorite game night option.  Perhaps I didn't get the right game pack or maybe we just needed to play a couple of times to get all of the kinks out, but the software was just too overwhelming for my taste.  It is an immersive game experience with sights and sounds and visual effects and animation and I found it to be just too loud and too aggressively directive to have sidebar conversations or other group interaction.  Those nights were fun, but I would say they were only about 70% successful because of the game platform.  That said, I have a couple of friends who love this, so obviously your mileage may vary.  Next, we tried

HouseParty Games

So, HouseParty is an app/software that is popular among young teens.  In fact, when you first sign up, it encourages you to friend anyone on your phone who also has a HouseParty account and it found like 200 of my kids' friends and only 2 of mine.  HouseParty is its own video conferencing platform.  Whereas the idea with Zoom is that you set up a call and invite people to join at a specific time, the idea behind HouseParty is that you hang out in the app and jump into HouseParty groups with other people you know (and sometimes people you don't) who also happen to be on the app at the time.  Yeah, my life doesn't really work that way, so you can ALSO just invite people to all get on the app at the same time.  You just have to make sure to add people into your call as they log on.  You can have up to 8 people in your HouseParty.

The reason you would want to use and sign up for this entirely separate video conferencing platform is that it has 4 games already built into it.  And they are pretty fun!  So, make sure everyone in your group has signed up for HouseParty and have them all log on from their phones at the same time.  Even though HouseParty has PC and Mac software, you can only play games using the mobile app.  Now add everyone into the same room and start a game by hitting the dice icon up at the top here.  You can choose from 4 different games.  I listed them in the order of my preference:

• Chips and Guac - this is HouseParty's version of Apples to Apples or -- you may be more familiar the adult version, Cards Against Humanity.  Basically, one person per round is designated as the judge and draws a prompt card.  Let say it's "Winter is Coming."  Everyone else has to pick from their 5-6 cards the match that they think the judge will like the best.  You submit your card, the judge checks over all of the options and declares a winner.  That person gets a point and someone else is picked to be the judge for the next round.  This all happens within the app (the card viewing and selecting), so it is easy and fun.  Plus there is lots of time to interact and chide each other as this is happening.
• Quick Draw - this is essentially Pictionary.  One person gets a prompt, attempts to draw it and everyone else has to guess what they are drawing.  They have a certain amount of time to draw as many prompts as they can successfully.  Then someone else becomes the person drawing for the next round.  I have tried to figure out how to do this using Zoom and, although I have a complicated method figured out, this is WAY easier and more straightforward.
• Heads Up - This is a game app that you can play in person on your phone where you put the prompt to your forehead and your partner has to give you clues to help you guess what the word or phrase is.  No need to put your phone to your forehead in HouseParty -- one person sees the prompt on their screen and gives verbal or audio clues for everyone else to guess.  For the game pack that consists of all animal names, you can limit the clues to only sounds and motions, which turns out to be pretty funny.  And finally, you can play some
• Trivia Games - these are quick and fun.  HouseParty keeps track of who has answered what correctly, so it gives you a scoreboard throughout.  

I found our HouseParty game night to be much more fun and interactive than the Jackbox game night, which I found a little stressful and draining.  The only real issue is that, even though HouseParty is good at games, it is less good at the video call part, so people kept getting dropped off and having to log back in or breaking up.  The good news is that the games didn't seem to care and just added people back in seamlessly.  

Join me in my next video where I discuss some games that you can play remotely over Zoom.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!