You Can Play These Popular Board and Card Games Online With Your Friends
This endless year of the pandemic has likely seriously degraded your weekly gaming evenings. But now that we’re all faced with the socially distanced holiday season, it might be time to get back to those heady early days of March and April when we all had Zoom cocktail hours and got together at Houseparty and plan some virtual entertainment. You can still play games with your friends and family while trying to add a little holiday to your vacation at home – it just means that instead of breaking the game board and inviting people over to you, you need to play online again.
Almost any board game you can think of can be played online, and a number of websites can help you do the magic. Many of them will require you to register if you want to play with friends, but the gameplay will be free if you put up with some ads. Others have a subscription fee, but if you plan on playing a lot online over the next few months of waiting for the vaccine, it might be worth it.
Here are a few of my personal board game tips to play the next night of online games to get you started. If you have any favorites, share them in the comments!
Yahtzee party
I used to be a big Yahtzee fan, but I have to admit I didn’t play much for a while. In this online version, you play against the clock, so it is always your turn, but your score is compared to that of your friends. The game lasts approximately 6 minutes. You can also play alone if you like. It’s hosted on Pogo, EA’s site that also has tons of other board game options.
Monopoly
Monopoly tends to suck, but at a time when many of us have a lot of it in our hands, this might be your chance to beat the entire game (or 12). This is another variation featured on Pogo.
Pretend to be Xizzy (also known as Cards Against Humanity)
Cards Against Humanity is a kind of party game. Playing online isn’t as fun as playing in person with friends, but you can set up a video chat to join the game to spice it up a bit. Earlier this year, the posh version of the clone was canceled, but followed by another, billed as Pretend You’re Xyzzy . The interface is not the most beautiful, but it gets the job done.
Chess
There are over 1000 different games available on Tabletopia , including a number of classics such as backgammon and chess.
Uno
Facebook also offers tons of different games, including Uno. If you use a social network and, more importantly, if your friends are using it, this might be the right time to start a couple of games. This post was originally published in March 2020 and updated on November 19, 2020 to replace the dead links for the online version of Cards Against Humanity, update the context, and replace the photo in the title.