Monopoly is my favourite board game and the only one i’ve played in many years now. However it’s not really something that can be played with friends when the country is locked down. Or is it?
Now you might think why not just play one of the many Monopoly games released on games consoles or the PC over the years? well the truth is these are simply not that good. For starters everyone needs to own a copy of the game which can cost up to £40, the same games console, then have a subscription to play online. So needless to say the people I wanted to play Monopoly with didn’t all own the same games console. We then discovered PC or Mobile versions of Monopoly were not that great either from the reviews we read online.
So how did we play social distancing Monopoly?
Well we did actually manage this without anyone leaving their respective homes.
The person with the monopoly board had this setup with a camera on a tripod, this camera was connected to his Laptop and was live streaming the Monopoly board over Skype.
Each person playing had Skype on their PC so the board could be viewed on a nice size screen, along with the money and property each player owned.
Next we needed audio and video so we could speak and see to each other as we played the game. For this Facebook Messenger was used as it allowed for group video calls on a PC, Mac or mobile device. This was perfect as some people playing wished to used their mobile phone for audio / video and others wished to use their laptop.
So essentially each person had two devices with an ongoing video call. This allowed us to see a good clean view of the board, along with been able to see and hear each other from the video call.
To ensure their was no cheating and everyone could see what each person rolled for the dice, we used a website called Roll Dice With Friends which allows you to create a room your friends can join, you then select the number of dice you wish to roll and the website rolls the dice for you, showing the results on everyone else’s screen in real time. I had this website open on my phone for convenience.
So to play social distancing Monopoly we we came to call it, you need 3 devices. One for the live stream of the board, one for the audio / video chat and another to roll the dice. It would be possible to do this all on one screen, however its a much easier setup having the board on the largest screen you have, then the video call / dice on other screens / devices.
All in all it was a fun experience in these unprecedented times that didn’t involve spending any money on digital versions of Monopoly.
I’d highly recommend you give social distancing Monopoly a try if your looking for something a bit different to do this weekend. I managed to win my first game without been there in person! However have since lost my second to my colleague Michael from our Upvc Spares4Repairs team.
