Quarantine – Make It Fun

Are you staying at home due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic? Well, me too. So I can understand how bored you are. Do you miss your friends? I really do. I haven’t seen them for a year. I wonder how they look like in real life. I miss them so much, but I can see their faces every day through my phone screen! Yes, although you are far away from your friends, technology has helped us overcome the distance problem and help us keep in touch with each other (virtually of course). If you are looking for some ways to interact with your friends during this pandemic, here is a list of useful ways to help you keep in contact with them.

The first method is video call! Nowadays, smartphones had come with a myriad of applications that have the video call feature. Video calls enable us to listen to their voices and see their face without any disturbance (you need to have a good internet connection). Apps such as WhatsApp, Zoom and Facetime are a good option for you to have a video call with your friends as they are very stable. Nowadays, Instagram also has a video call feature where you can add filters to your video in real-time! I had a lot of fun when messing with my friends by adding a dinosaur filter while they are talking to make them feeling annoying.

Next, you can play online games with your friends by using your phone. This is the best part of a smartphone. The games have evolved so much that you can online play with your friends together. Imagine if the pandemic happens 20 years ago when phones just came out. There was no way for you to play the snake game on your Nokia with your friends. One of the fun games that I played with my friends is HouseParty. This app is amazing, as you not only can play with your friends in real-time but you can also have a video call with them while playing! There are many types of games option available for you inside it! For example, in a quiz game, it will show a list of questions related to the selected topic and four different multiple-choice will be provided. This game was fun as I feel like playing trivia night together with my friends. Besides, it also has the word scramble game. I am not sure whether you have played this game before. Basically, it is a game where the letters in a word are scrambled, the player can make up words from these few letters. The player who can make up the most words will be the winner. It also has other games such as drawing games, where one player need to draw one of the items shown in the cards given, while the rest of the players have to guess the drawing at a specific time. Another game that I found interesting is called ‘Cards Against Humanity’, where the game system will distribute several cards to each player and each round has a different card Czar that chooses the funniest pairing. Lastly, UNO is also one of the games that I found interesting! I think everyone knows what is UNO and I am sure everyone had played it before. Apart from HouseParty, another fun game is PSYCH! This game also consists of many mini-games. However, every player needs to join a party as they need a code provided by the hose of the party to enable them to start playing the game. One of the mini-game inside it is a game which will ask some tricky question. For instance, a question like “what is player 1’s biggest secret” will be asked to players and all the players including player 1 are required to answer. Moreover, there is also a guessing game, where the players need to guess the correct name of an item, but the catch is only one answer is correct, the rest of the answers are given by one player and other players have to figure out the correct answer. There are many types of fun party games inside the PSYCH! However, the downside of PHYCH is some of the games are not free.

Another game that comes to mind is called Undercover. Let me tell you a secret, this game can ruin friendships! I am not kidding. My a few friends have fought with each other after playing this game. Basically, this game consists of a few players, one of them is undercover. In the beginning, each player will take turns to see the word provided by the system. The word provided for both players and undercover will be very similar. For example, the given word for players is “kitten”, while the word for undercover is “puppy”. Then, each player will take a turn to describe their word in a short sentence. After each round, players need to figure out which player has a different word. However, this is difficult as the word given to the undercover is very similar to others.

To battle the boredom of quarantine, you can use all these apps also. You can play a game with your friends at night time and enjoy it! Besides that, if you want to chat with your friends while watching a movie, here is the app for you! Netflix Party, which has now changed its name to Telepathy. This app enables you and your friends who have Netflix to watch a show or movie together. Hence, you will feel like you’re in the same room with your friends. It is also added with the option of muting, so you can mute someone you dislike. Now, they have a new function as you can use this app to chat with your friends while watching shows on Disney, Hulu, HBO and many more. If you do not have these apps, do not be fret, there are many alternative apps that can be used such as Syncplay, which is more open-source and can stream from a local file on your computer. Thus, you can share files stored on your computer with your friends. Besides that, there’s Scener. This is a web app that required you to install a Chrome Extension to enable you to use it. If you have Plex VR, you can use it as well as it allows you for sharing a virtual reality environment with others. At the same time, you can also chat with your friends. This app comes with its agendas, you need to have supported headsets and a Plex Server before sharing movies with others. If you are looking for an easier method to watch movies with your friends, stick to the good ol’ Zoom. It has a share screen feature that makes streaming movies almost seamless.