Gaming, both online and regular board games, is one of the things that we like to do as a family.  We used to spend a lot of time together playing games together, however, now that I work full time, it’s been more of a challenge finding the time to play our favorite games and to find new ones.  We are sometimes able to find some time to spend together playing games though.  This is when we have the best family time, and we will talk about anything and everything going on.  Sometimes, we even get so loud that we drive Sean out of the room (or house).  He doesn’t like the loud noises and raucous laughter when we are playing together.

Some of you may not see online gaming as quality family time, however, the way we do it definitely qualifies as family time.  We aren’t in separate rooms when we play together.  Usually we are all around the same table, or at least in the same room and are constantly talking about what we are doing.  Our online gaming time is no different than when we play board games or cards (and sometimes we do play online board games) and the discussions are just as much fun without the risk of loosing pieces or cards.  We do also have some board games and card games that the kids still like to play, but it is so much more fun for us on the computers and phones.

One of the things that I love most about online gaming is that you can play with family and friends, even when you live states away.  And there are even ways to talk to each other now, Discord being the main program we use right now.  It’s more challenging to do zoom while gaming, but it’s also a possibility at times.  Of course, it’s not as much fun as when we are all in the same room, but it’s great to be able to spend time with family we don’t get to see very often.  We have created YouTube videos of the games we play online, and love live streaming our favorite games.  Roblox is our go to for family online gaming time, but it’s not really very phone friendly.  There are a lot of games that aren’t accessible when you are using a phone or tablet and the games that are available are very hard to play on a phone.  Hailie and Leslie handle playing the games on their phones better than I do.  I’ve gotten to the point that if my laptop isn’t available, I won’t play Roblox. I have a few games installed on my phone that I play when I’m looking to pass the time.

Recently, I’ve discovered a new game website, plays.org.  I’ve had only a little time to check out the games on there, but this site has become my go to when I’m trying to pass time, while waiting for appointments or while I wait for the kids to come out of school.  It’s fully browser based, so there is no need to download an app on the phone or computer.  There is a very good variety of games on there as well.  I’ve played “Pac-Rat“, which as you can guess by the title is a pac-man-like game, but with a rat and cats instead of ghosts. I’ve never been a big phone gamer, but this one isn’t too hard to play on the phone, though I still prefer playing it, like most games, on my laptop.

I’ve also played “Super Spice Dash” which is a game where your a chicken nugget collecting gold crumbs.  This one is kind of challenging on the phone, but is still playable.  You jump to grab peppers and you have to avoid obstacles like thorn bushes and cacti.  I have found that it may be easier to jump over the obstacles in this game, but its actually better to move to the side to avoid the obstacles, because when you jump, sometimes its hard to get back on track of collecting the gold crumbs and it’s harder to jump and get the peppers or jump over unexpected gaps.  So I’m working on moving to the side to get around the obstacles instead.

There are also some educational games. There’s a math game and a typing game that I plan on having my kids check out at some point. When they do, I will add their comments on them to this post.  There are also the more traditional games like solitaire, tetris and mahjong. 

These are nice because you don’t have to download them, taking up more space on the phone.  I’m forever having to delete apps so that I can install other apps, so I like having these games available to me without taking up the extra phone space.