In this article we discuss teleconferencing gaming and we reveal our own free game that we built.
If you have gone through our tutorial on how to use Zoom to host a digital board-game night, then you are probably wondering; What kind of game could I play?
How You Could Host a Teleconferencing Board Game Night
If you have gone through some of our other tutorials, you might have the idea to use a combination of Steam, Tabletop Simulator, and Zoom to create a digital board game space and then show the rest of your game group all of the actions on the board.
This has certain advantages:
Members in your gaming group will only have to download and get an account on Zoom (or a teleconferencing program of your choice).
Game-night attendees will not have to purchase Tabletop Simulator, which ranges from $10-$20 depending on sales.
However, there is a major disadvantage:
You, the host, will have to perform all actions for the board game, which means that certain games aren't suitable for this scenario. A board game that does work in this scenario, is Deep Sea Adventure on Table-top Simulator.
But there's another solution using resources that are widely available; You could build a game in an Excel spreadsheet.
Crisis in Democracy; The Game We Made in Microsoft Excel
Crisis in Democracy is an Excel based board game that supports from 2-6 players, averages 45 minute games, and we are making it available to you for free. The game consists one Excel spreadsheet and a PDF of the rules. That's it.
To play Crisis in Democracy, you'll need a Google Drive Account and a Zoom Account (You can follow our tutorial on Zoom to get started).
How To Play
Step 1 Download the Crisis in Democracy game files.
You can download the rules here (PDF). Both the rules and the game board are available on a GitHub project page. Click "download" to download the rules PDF.
Screenshot of Github repository where Crisis in Democracy game is hosted.
Similarly, you can download the game board here. (Excel Spreadsheet). Click "download" to download the Excel File.
Screenshot of Github repository where Crisis in Democracy game is hosted.
Step 2 Upload the Crisis in Democracy game files to a Google Drive and Invite Others to Access folder.
Upload both files to a Google Drive folder. For additional information on how to upload to Google Drive, we recommend this tutorial from Google.
After the files are uploaded, invite game participants to access the folder, ensure that attendees are able to access and edit within the folder. Setup a Zoom room with all attendees and proceed to go through the rules of the game. If you need a refresher, you follow our own guide.
Step 3 Have all Attendees Familiarize Themselves with the Rules and the Mechanics
This next step assumes you have read the rules, if you haven't, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the game rules and the game board spreadsheet.
Ensure that all members become familiar with the rules of the game and that they are familiar with the various locations within the Google Drive. For this version of the game, players will manipulate the Excel spreadsheet (which has now become a Google Sheets file) by filling in squares, representing "tokens" placed on a board.
Screenshot of Crisis in Democracy Board 1.
To "place a token", all you need to do is fill in one of the 36 squares with color.
Screenshot of Crisis in Democracy Board 1, where a token has been "placed" by coloring the grid.
A core mechanic of this game is that player boards (Tabs that labeled "Board#") are rotated counter-clockwise. Players will instead alternate through different board tabs. As an example, Player 1 would be responsible for Board 1 and "Reality Card 1" and would rotate through the rest of the tabs during the "Exposure Phase".
Screenshot of Crisis in Democracy Board 1 showing the tabs on the bottom of the spreadsheet.
Step 4 Play!
All that's needed is for your game night to have fun and declare a winner! The board can be reset manually or it can be re-downloaded. We recommend saving a copy to your drive and creating copies for specific game nights.
We hope this free-resource can encourage the creation of more board games using available resources.
Microsoft Excel, Github, Google Drive, Google Pages, Google Sheets, Steam, Table-top Simulator, Zoom, and Deep Sea Adventure are registered trademarks of their respective entities.