Ever since the pandemic started almost a year ago, we’ve been looking for various ways to interact with the people close to us. Board game fans are especially having a difficult time since one of the recommendations is to practice social distancing.
The good news is that there is a way to play board games with your friends and still respect the social distancing rule. Among the many services that became popular during the pandemic is the video conferencing app Zoom. Despite that use-case scenario, you can also use Zoom to play your favorite board games with your friends. Best thing is you can do it from the comfort of your own home.
You can play tons of board games, but the one we’ll be talking about today is Scrabble. We will cover how to set it up and a quick reminder on how to play it.
How to Setup Scrabble for Zoom
To play the game on Zoom, there are a couple of requirements. One of you will need to have the game at hand, and each player will need to have Zoom installed.
That player will be the game host/player and follow the instructions from the other players. The gamemaster should set up a phone or a tablet on a stand on top of the board so that all players can clearly see it. The next part requires some faith from the other players.
How to Play Scrabble on Zoom
Since the letters are in a bag, the players will need to have a little faith from the gamemaster. In other words, he or she will need to mix the letters up and try to pick them as random as possible.
The first picking is to see which player goes first. All letters in the bag are mixed, and the gamemaster pulls out one for each player. Whoever has a letter closest to “A” starts the game. Next, the gamemaster will need to draw seven additional letter tiles from the bag for each player.
As the players can see the others’ tiles, the gamemaster can play as well. Each player will need to instruct the gamemaster on which tiles to use and where to place them. Once a few tiles are used, the gamemaster will need to draw the same number of letters for the player. The game goes on until one player uses all tiles or the game reaches a point with no possible moves. When that happens, the points are calculated, and the winner is declared.
Where to Play Scrabble Online if Zoom Isn’t an Option
Scrabble is an exciting word game played by millions of people, but not all of them have a board game at home. If that is the case, or you don’t want to fiddle with setting it up on Zoom, there is a digital version of Scrabble. There are multiple websites or services that can enable you and your friends to play Scrabble online.
- Scrabble Go for mobile devices. This is the easiest way to play if you have an Apple device. It not only allows you to connect with friends but it also has other game modes and even tournaments.
2. Scrabble on Pogo.com. Pogo has a variety of games that can be played for free and Scrabble is one of the top options so you will almost always have a challenger to play against.
Final Thoughts
The global pandemic forced us to stay at home to be as safe as possible. That resulted in many canceled game nights due to the nature of the game. The good news is that modern services and technology enables us to bypass that. We don’t need to cancel game nights, but we can also remain safe at home. Thanks to them, we can now play Scrabble on Zoom with ease.
