My oh my, how much life has changed in the past few weeks. I hope this blog post finds you all healthy and safe — and with enough toilet paper! Yeah, I still don’t understand why people are hoarding that.

I’m now entering my third week of working from home, and, if I’m being honest, the extrovert in me had a really tough time in the beginning not being able to hang out with coworkers and friends on the daily.

Sure, I take my daily walks outside with my dog and then my partner comes home from his workday, but it’s really not the same when you can’t do all your favorite activities because of social distancing. Even my weekly game nights have been canceled in order to stay healthy and not catch the coronavirus.

So what have I been doing in the meantime? We’ve all jumped online.

I wrote about online gaming years ago, but now we are knee deep in it. Our current gaming workflow has been logging into boardgamearena.com and a Discord channel so that we can all talk to each other while we game. Though, just an hour ago, my buddy said that premium members can now activate the voice chat room on BGA. I’m very excited to try this out next time we game!

BGA has a bunch of games, and most are free. To play the rest of the games, you’ll need a premium membership, which is $4 a month. I like having access all the games and I feel like I’m doing my small part to keep the website running in tiptop shape now that we’re all online.

Some of the games I’ve been playing are Sushi Go, Takenoko, 6 Nimmt, Caylus, Race for the Galaxy and, of course, backgammon. 

I love how I’ve been playing with my gaming groups as well as my girlfriends, whom I all made sign up on BGA for the first time. Every online session with friends makes me feel a little bit more human during these uncertain times. 

Luckily for me, my partner also likes to play games. We’ve been playing games that don’t take up a lot of table space, as my workstation has taken over half of the dining table. I’m home all the time now, but I have less space to bust out that giant Lacerda. Talk about bad timing!

Recently I really enjoyed playing Bruxulles 1897, the card game of Bruxelles 1893. It’s quite enjoyable and equally tight as the original, but with a much smaller footprint.

So what games have you all been playing, and what are some of the new routines life has foisted upon you? Also, is it too soon to play Pandemic? What about Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, my favorite iteration of the game?

Anyway, here’s hoping the state of the world improves quickly. Stay well, avoid others, wash your hands, and practice self-care and check in with your friends. We’re all in this together!