Group Activities To Pass The Time
Here we’ll briefly explore some of the most popular board game options of 2020. We’ll cover a few new games, a few classics, and some variations on live group gaming here. The year’s lockdown laws aren’t good, but there’s a silver lining in family activities if you’ve got time to kill!
Cosmic Encounter
Cosmic Encounter is a game that came out in 2008 and is just now getting popular. With Cosmic Encounter, you’re going on a space voyage to conquer the galaxy through varying alliances and individualized powers of diverse extraterrestrial races.
The game is designed for between three and five players and takes one to two hours. It’s aimed at players aged twelve and up and has a complexity rating on boardgamegeek.com of 2.57 out of 5. So it’s squarely in the middle of average difficulty, making it a good fit for players of varying age and skill.
Endless Iterations Of D&D
Dungeons and Dragons have been around since 1974 and have experienced a clear resurgence in the last decade. TV shows like Stranger Things have driven D&D nostalgia of the eighties home, resurrecting D&D campaigns across the world.
Here’s the thing about D&D: there are hundreds of iterations of the classic game. It’s a role-playing game—which means you design your characters based on a few categories and roles of the dice. D&D can be complicated, but many different options exist for new and tenured players—to get straight information, check out the D20 Collective.
For the tech-savvy, if you’ve got a board and some dice because D&D is a role-playing adventure, you can improvise boards and pieces; all you need to have is a group of several friends willing to go on a “campaign”. The game can last hours or years, depending on your dedication. There’s much lockdown fun to be had in the world of D&D in 2020.
Dead Of Winter
Dead Of Winter raises moral quandaries and gives two to five players the adventurous fun of surviving a zombie apocalypse in the dead of winter. The game incorporates all the traditional gameplay elements of a board game with the modern sentiment and the occasional tough decision. A narrative accompanies players as they traverse the apocalyptic world of the game.
It’s been around since 2014, but given the 2020 lockdown, this game has become very popular in the last couple of months. Part of that popularity is the length. The game will take one to two hours, depending on how many players and how much back-and-forth takes place during the narrative.
This game is aimed at older players—particularly those aged thirteen and up. In terms of complexity, the link to boardgamegeek.com puts Dead Of Winter at a 3.01 out of 5. So it’s not the most complex game out there, but it’s past the average.
Classics: Cards, Chess, And Sketchy “Pictionary’
Card games can be like a board game for those who favor their booze. Chess is a fine two-player game that’s classic, and perhaps more popular in 2020 than it was on inception 1,000+ years ago. If you’re new to this game, there are many online resources that offer chess training for beginners. “Sketch Pictionary”, which goes by many names, is passing a stack of papers with a picture and an explanation of the picture to the left.
You write down a phrase, pass the stack, the person sees the phrase, puts that paper on the bottom of the stack, draws a picture on the next sheet, and passes it. Then the person who gets the stack tries to figure out what the phrase was from the drawn picture, writes their idea, passes it, and the third person draws another picture—etc.
You can play with up to thirty people or more if you’ve got the time. It’s best with no less than four. It’s almost impossible to get phrases or pictures right, and the fun comes when everybody gets their stack back and laughs at what their friends tried to draw. It takes about a half-hour to play. You just need people, pens (or pencils), and paper.
Having Fun IN 2020, And Beyond!
Whether going with improvised gaming options at home, D&D, Cosmic Encounter, Dead of Winter, or something else, there’s quite a lot of board game variety for lockdown in 2020. These games were fun before lockdown, and they’ll likely be just as much fun after—so don’t think it’s only the world’s present discomfort that makes them fun!
These are some of the most popular for the year that we’re in. As long as you’re imaginative, there’s much fun to be had; and with these games, in terms of imagination, the sky’s the limit!