When Alex Bennett, a network programmer in Seattle, created JigsawPuzzles.io in 2018, he couldn’t have imagined the impact the multiplayer puzzle website would have during COVID-19.
“It was kind of a sleepy little game,” Bennett said. “It had players, but it had 200 or 400 per day.”
However, after people started quarantining in March 2020, the website received up to around 10,000 visitors daily.
During the pandemic, casual online multiplayer games have been a way for people to connect and enjoy activities that once were in person.
Emma Khazzam, a fifth-year Carleton food science student, has organized game nights for the Carleton Science Student Society and the Food Science Student Society.
“We had to really brainstorm what type of activities we could do to bring students together to feel more connected. Being online, it kind of limits the opportunities,” she said.
“Gaming is something that has been going on for a long time online, so we just took that idea and brought it to the societies.”
Khazzam said using online games in events makes it convenient for students to participate.
“I definitely think that online gaming, with societies like this, will continue in the future,” she said.
Hassan Hashmi is a second-year computer science and business administration student at the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. He often plays Skribbl.io, a website where players take turns drawing a word or phrase while other players guess what it is.
“When I want to relax, I’ll play Skribbl or play these chill, laid-back games,” Hashmi said. “It kind of replaced actual in-person hanging out.”
Online gaming has made its way into the professional world as well, according to Hashmi.
Hashmi is working a co-op placement at Medchart, a health-care start-up, where Skribbl.io has become a way for employees to connect. “It’s like 100 or so people, and everybody plays the game at some point during their week,” he said.
At Hubdoc, a document management company in Toronto, software developer Ryan Dotsikas helps run weekly game sessions at work with websites including Skribbl.io and online adaptations of board games, such as Codenames and Secret Hitler.
“While we were in the office, we were pretty social and people would play board games at lunch and maybe stick around and hang out on Friday for a little bit,” Dotsikas said. “Moving to working from home, we wanted to still capture that kind of environment.”
For many, casual online games are more accessible than other video games because people can play them without making an account, buying the game or downloading any software.
During the pandemic, Kenmore, WA-based software engineer Evan Bailey designed Longwave, an online adaptation of the board game Wavelength. One player gives a clue based on a point along a spectrum such as “plain” to “fancy,” and others have to guess where the clue lies on the spectrum.
“Generally, before now, online games were marketed towards a specific demographic of people who already like to play video games,” Bailey said. “The increase in games that are trying to bring in people who wouldn’t normally be playing online games, it’s good for the industry.”
After the success of JigsawPuzzles.io, Bennett has been thinking about the future of his projects and of games in the pandemic.
“People send me letters with regularity, and they tell some story about how they couldn’t see their grandparent so they taught them to use this game,” he said.
He added he hadn’t received that kind of feedback for the action games he made in the past.
“I do wonder, ‘Are these things going to become our traditions?’” Bennett said. “Will we carry them forward? Or is it just us coping, and does it all go away if people are able to meet more?”
Featured graphic by Cara Garneau.
