The Socially Distanced Year 🗺

I like playing storytelling games. I like playing The Quiet Year by Avery Alder. What I don't like is risking a deadly plague to play it.

The Socially Distanced Year facilitates playing The Quiet Year remotely by providing players with

1. A randomly generated room to share with friends
2. A shared map to draw on
3. A virtual deck of cards to draw from
4. Projects that advance on their own each turn

Prior to developing this app, I was able to hop onto Aggie.io and draw with my other players, but that comes with some rough edges. Namely, it forced one person to control the deck rather than letting each player draw and reveal their own card; also, projects needed to be continually drawn and erased as the turns passed, which tended to mess up the map as well.

As a facilitator rather than a game, The Socially Distanced Year lets anyone draw on the map, manipulate projects, and skip turns at any time. The only action which is restricted to one player at a time is the act of drawing a card. Because of this, I don't suggest playing with anyone you wouldn't sit across a table in person with.

• The app: The Socially Distanced Year
• The game: The Quiet Year
• A handy tutorial by Tom Holloway, which I based the collaborative canvas on: Realtime collaborative drawing with canvas and WebRTC